About the conductor
Graham Ross is a composer and conductor of a wide range of repertoire. He has worked with specialised ensembles and orchestras alike in music from Buxtehude to MacMillan. He is one of today's youngest published composers, and has had works performed throughout the UK and beyond. A passionate believer in the unveiling of both unjustly-neglected and newly-penned works, he has given numerous first performances as both a pianist and conductor of a very broad spectrum of composers.
He studied at Clare College, Cambridge and at the Royal College of Music, firstly as a Junior Exhibitioner and later as a postgraduate orchestral conductor under Peter Stark and Robin O'Neill, generously supported by an H.R. Taylor Trust Award for Conducting and a BBC Performing Arts Bursary. He is Principal Conductor of The Dmitri Ensemble; a group which he co-founded in 2004 based around the central core of a string ensemble, in order to explore in particular both rarely performed and newly-composed works. The Ensemble has been praised for its highly acclaimed performances and an increasingly diverse discography. In 2009 the Ensemble released its debut disc on the Naxos label of works by James MacMillan with glowing 5-star reviews, and recorded a second disc of previously-unrecorded works by Vaughan Williams on the Albion label, conducted by Sir David Willcocks. The Ensemble's third disc, the première recording of Judith Bingham's organ concerto, Jacob's Ladder, will be released in 2010 on the Signum label.
He guest conducts numerous ensembles and orchestras, most recently Aalborg Symfoniorkester, Tallis Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia of Cambridge and Choir and Orchestra of London, and has been re-engaged by all these ensembles. Increasingly at home in the field of opera, he made his opera debut in 2007 conducting The Magic Flute in Jerusalem, the first ever fully-staged operatic production on the West Bank, returning there in 2009 to assist on a production of La Bohême. He has conducted a triple bill of American operas with Second Movement Opera, Le nozze di Figaro from the fortepiano with Vignette Productions in London and Provence, and Britten's The Little Sweep with Jubilee Opera in Aldeburgh. He has worked regularly at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, and has served as chorus master to Ivor Bolton and the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg and Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra. He held an inaugural conducting scholarship with the London Symphony Chorus, and in addition is Musical Director of both Kingston Choral Society and Concordia Chamber Choir. He is passionately committed to music education and outreach projects, and has taught composition at Cambridge University.
As a composer he studied principally with Giles Swayne. He has had works performed at numerous concerts and festivals in both live and broadcast performances, including as far afield as Slovenia, Kuwait, Israel and Lebanon. He has had performances given by, amongst others, Aurora Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, comedian Barry Humphries, BBC Concert Orchestra, Choir of London, City of London Sinfonia, Edington Festival, English Voices, Gloucester Cathedral Choir, conductor Harry Christophers, National Youth Choir of Great Britain, O Duo, Royal College of Music and the Solstice Quartet. In 2009 he won the inaugural City of London Sinfonia/Old Mutual composition prize and the John Sanders Memorial Prize for Composition. He has works published by Novello & Co, Oxford University Press and the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. Previously an spnm (Society for the Promotion of New Music) shortlisted composer, his works are housed in the British Music Information Centre (BMIC).
Forthcoming projects in 2010/11 include re-engagements with Aalborg Symfoniorkester, Sinfonia of Cambridge, Royal College of Music and Vignette Productions. In April 2010 he will record a fourth disc with The Dmitri Ensemble of works by Giles Swayne for the Naxos label, to be released in 2011 in the composer's 65th year. Future commissions include a major work for the 50th Farnham Festival, and performances include the London première of his String Quartet No. 1 at LSO St Luke's with the Solstice Quartet, and a live BBC Radio 3 broadcast of his anthem I sing of a maiden at the 2010 Three Choirs Festival. In March 2010 he will make his Glyndebourne debut as Assistant Conductor on Knight Crew, a new opera by Julian Philips.
(c) January 2010
For more information visit www.grahamross.com