Biography

Mark Wigglesworth

Born in Sussex, England, Mark Wigglesworth studied music at Manchester University and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London. A few weeks after leaving the Academy, he won the Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in the Netherlands, and since then has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies.

In April 2014, the English National Opera announced that Mr. Wigglesworth would be the company’s next Music Director, beginning in September 2015.

In 1992 he became Associate Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and further appointments included Principal Guest Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Highlights of his time with BBC NOW included several visits to the BBC Proms, a performance of Mahler's tenth symphony at the prestigious Amsterdam Mahler Festival in 1995, and a six-part television series for the BBC entitled Everything To Play For.

In addition to working with most of the UK's orchestras, Mark Wigglesworth has guest conducted many of Europe's finest ensembles, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, La Scala Filarmonica, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

Equally busy in North America, Mr. Wigglesworth has worked with the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago and Boston symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco, Montreal, Detroit, Toronto, Vancouver and Cincinnati symphonies. He is a regular guest at the Minnesota Orchestra and has an on-going relationship with the New World Symphony.

Mark Wigglesworth began his operatic career as Music Director of Opera Factory, London. Since then he has worked regularly at Glyndebourne (Peter Grimes, La bohème, Le nozze di Figaro); Welsh National Opera (Elektra, The Rake's Progress, Tristan und Isolde, Cosî fan tutte); and English National Opera (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Cosî fan tutte, Falstaff, Katya Kabanova, Parsifal). He has conducted at the Netherlands Opera (Peter Grimes); La Monnaie in Brussels (Mitridate, Wozzeck, Pelléas et Mélisande); the Sydney Opera House (Peter Grimes); New York’s Metropolitan Opera (Le nozze di Figaro); and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg).

In the recording studio, Mr. Wigglesworth’s recordings have centered around a project with BIS Records to record all the symphonies of Shostakovich, a cycle which has received critical acclaim throughout the world. Other recordings include live performances of Mahler's sixth and tenth symphonies issued by the Melbourne Symphony on the MSO Live label, Peter Grimes from the Glyndebourne Festival, Don Giovanni from the Sydney Opera House, a disc of English music with the Sydney Symphony, and most recently the two Brahms Piano Concertos with Stephen Hough and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra.

Internationally, recent and upcoming performance highlights include returns to Covent Garden (Weill’s Mahagonny), a new production of Britten’s Owen Wingrave for the Aldeburgh Festival, appearances with the Tokyo Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestras, as well as debuts with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Flemish Philharmonic and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.

Photographs

Mark WigglesworthClassical Conductor Mark WigglesworthClassical Conductor Mark WigglesworthClassical Conductor Mark Wigglesworth

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