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A Mission to Commission
Biographies of the music directors behind W11 Opera productions.
Year |
Work |
music director |
Rain Dance |
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The Whale Savers |
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The Song of Rhiannon |
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Shadowtracks |
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Chincha-Chancha Cooroo |
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ANTiphony |
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All in the Mind |
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Game Over |
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Stormlight |
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Flying High |
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Deep Waters |
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Rip |
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Birthday |
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Eloise |
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Ulysses and the Wooden Horse |
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The Dancing Princesses |
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ANTiphony |
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Travellers Tale |
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Listen to the Earth |
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A Time of Miracles |
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Double Trouble |
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Koppelberg |
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The Return of Odysseus |
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Ulysses and the Wooden Horse |
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The Tin Knight |
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Bel and the Dragon |
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The Adventures of Jonah |
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Rainbow Planet |
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Birthday |
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Wenceslas |
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Mak the Sheep Stealer |
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Dreamtime |
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The Girl and the Unicorn |
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The Adventures of Jonah |
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Like This, Like That |
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Joseph |
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The Winter Star |
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Bel and the Dragon |
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The Pied Piper |
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Noye’s Fludde |
Philip is a conductor who has worked with many of this country's Opera Companies. He was chorus master at Opera North where he conducted Traviata, Sweeney Todd and the Brahms’ Requiem. He has conducted numerous shows for English Touring Opera and this year conducts for Carl Rosa, Clonter Opera and Opera Brava.
He has recently returned from Prague, where he was involved in Benedict Mason’s football opera ‘Playing Away’ directed by David Pountney. He taught the Czech Philharmonic Chorus how to become a chorus of English football hooligans and appeared on stage with them as Kev, the Manchester United Coach. He says is more than delighted to become the MD for W11 Opera and having heard Rain Dance for the first time, is convinced it will be a major hit!
Photograph © Andrew Crowley
Conductor and music director for a number of London and regional choral, operatic and musical theatre companies, Philip Colman is a member of the professorial staff of Trinity College of Music.
2009 was Philip’s tenth and final year as Music Director of W11 Opera. “Every year has been very different. No two operas are alike and each new opera presents challenges and adventure in equal measure”.
Philip has been vocal coach for the W11 Opera children participating in Opera Holland Park for many years, guest conductor for the British Suzuki Institute at the Royal Festival Hall, and for Enfield Youth Symphony Orchestra, and he also conducts the young singers’ Vocal Ensemble at Trinity College. He has a particular interest in Sondheim musicals. As a pianist Philip has worked for Ballet Rambert, the Royal Opera House, RADA, the NFT and the BBC children’s programme Playschool.
Philip is now a Patron of W11 Opera and more about is varied career can be found here.
Dominic McGonigal (1995 to 1999)
After training as a chorister, Dominic McGonigal read music at King’s College, Cambridge where he sang bass in King’s Chapel Choir including the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast to several hundred million people around the world. He then combined a career in the music business with ad hoc performing and conducting, including appointments as music director of W11 Children’s Opera, Stoneleigh Choral Society, the Church of St Anselm & St Cecilia in Holborn and Opera Spezzata. He is now focused on the business side of music, as an executive director of PPL, licensing and collecting royalties for performers and record companies both in the UK and overseas. Most recently he has been spearheading the campaign to extend copyright for musicians. He holds a number of non-executive positions within the creative industries, but still finds time for occasional conducting and composing.
Harry Gregson-Williams (1993 & 1994)
Harry Gregson-Williams is a Golden Globe- and Grammy-nominated British film score composer, orchestrator, conductor, and music producer. In the 1980s he taught music to the pupils at the Amesbury School in in Hindhead, Surrey and later at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama whre he had been a pupil.
He has scored numerous motion pictures including Kingdom of Heaven, Phone Booth, The Chronicles of Narnia films, the Shrek series, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Gone Baby Gone. He also composed the soundtrack for the latest film in the X-Men series. To some he is possibly now best known for the many striking works he created for the Metal Gear Solid video games.
In August 2003 he opened his studio complex, Wavecrest Music, in Venice Beach, California.
Wayne Marshall was born in the UK and, after musical studies there and in Vienna, swiftly established an international reputation as organist and pianist. He is now also in great demand as conductor and duo recitalist. Other musical activities include improvisation, jazz, radio and television presentation and composition. In 2004 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Bournemouth University in recognition of his longstanding relationship with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. A regular visitor to the BBC Proms, he featured in the 1997 Last Night of the Proms as both organ and piano soloist and the following year made his Proms conducting debut with Porgy and Bess (their Gershwin centenary tribute) and also took part in the ‘Prom in the Park’.
As organ recitalist he draws on an exceptionally large and varied repertoire, particularly favouring the French Romantics, and has appeared widely throughout the UK, Europe, North America and the Far East. As solo pianist, his repertoire includes the complete works of Gershwin for piano and orchestra to works by Ravel, Bernstein, Stravinsky and Franck. In recent seasons, guest conducting has taken him all over the UK and to many parts of Europe and the USA. As pianist/director and organ soloist he has appeared with orchestras worldwide.
Wayne Marshall is Organist-in Residence of Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, and in 1996, gave the inaugural solo recital on its splendid Marcussen organ, plus Jongen Sinfonie Concertante (Hallé Orchestra/Daniel Harding) to a capacity audience of 2,400. He regularly opens their organ recital series and other appearances include duo recitals and concerts with orchestra as organist, pianist and symphonic conductor. In addition to consultation over programming, he is closely involved with the Hall’s audience development, education and outreach programmes.
Outside Manchester, work with young musicians has included a number of youth orchestras and conservatoire orchestras, such as the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, students of the Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and the conservatoires of Dresden and Winterthur.
Nicholas Kraemer (1971 to 1988)
Nicholas Kraemer co-founded W11 Opera with Serena Hughes in 1971 when Britten's Noye's Fludde was presented in St.James' Church in W.11. At that time, Nicholas was principally a harpsichordist with ensembles such as the Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields and the Monteverdi Orchestra (to become John Eliot Gardiner's English Baroque Soloists). From 1975 he began to conduct the English Chamber Orchestra with whom he had an association until 1984 and, from 1982, Manchester Camerata with whom he is still principal guest conductor. Other orchestras with which he has been closely associated include Northern Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Bach Orchestra (artistic director 1985-1993), Irish Chamber Orchestra (artistic director 1985-1991), Music of the Baroque, Chicago (principal guest conductor from 2002), the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, St.Paul Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Halle Orchestra.
In the opera world he has conducted mainly the operas of Handel and Mozart in Geneva, Paris, Lisbon, Marseille, Aachen, Glyndebourne and London (ENO).His speciality is to work with orchestras in the baroque repertoire, to recapture the spirit of the music of that time. He does occasionally work with younger musicians, most recently in a project with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Edinburgh Secondary Schools Orchestra.
For Nicholas Kraemer’s reminiscences of working with W11 Opera, click .
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