Biography
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Biography
 
Peter Selwyn is an internationally acclaimed conductor who has worked at some of the world’s great opera houses.

Over the past 25 years he has conducted over 60 operas worldwide, from London to Australia and Budapest to Singapore, for major companies including Welsh National Opera and Opera North, working at the Royal Opera and Bayreuth Festival and a wide range of European companies.

From 1999 to 2005, Peter Selwyn was Kapellmeister and Head of Music at the Staatstheater Nürnberg, leading to important roles at the top opera houses of Britain and Germany. This included three seasons at Bayreuth as assistant to Adam Fischer and Giuseppe Sinopoli on the millennial Ring Cycle and assisting at the Hamburgische Staatsoper. Peter returned to Bayreuth in Summers 2022 and 2023 to assist Pietari Inkinen on the new Ring Cycle.
 
Operas conducted include: in Germany, Peter Grimes, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Carmen, La Bohème, Orfeo ed Euridice, Iphigénie en Tauride, Hänsel und Gretel, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor and the major Mozart operas at the Staatstheater Nürnberg, A Little Night Music at the Stadttheater Fürth; Ariadne auf Naxos MusikfürMusik Kollaborativ Berlin across the UK, Carmen, Welsh National Opera, Fidelio, Romeo et Juliette Opera North, Hänsel und Gretel, La Rondine Opera Holland Park, Jenufa, La Cenerentola, Emperor of Atlantis English Touring Opera, Die Walküre Berwick Festival Opera, Ring Cycle (in the Jonathan Dove reduction), Grimeborn Festival, The Rape of Lucretia, Grimeborn Festival, Die Walküre, Tristan und Isolde, London Opera Company, Madam Butterfly, Die Zauberflöte European Chamber Opera, Don Giovanni Pimlico Opera, Treemonisha Pegasus Opera and La Gioconda, Macbeth, La Forza del Destino and Die Fledermaus; in Hungary, The Rape of Lucretia for the European Opera Centre and Salome for the Singapore Lyric Opera.

During his career he conducted numerous world premières, such as Hear Our Voice by Jonathan Dove in London, Nuremberg and at the Prague State Opera. Other premières include operas by Alec Roth, David Knotts and Todd Macneal in London and Australia for the English National Opera’s Baylis Programme; The Uninvited by Julian Grant at Blackheath Concert Halls Jane Eyre by Julia Gomelskaya for London Children’s Ballet.
 
His extensive symphonic repertoire has led to work with numerous orchestras and ensembles, among them: Nürnberger Philharmoniker - Wiener Symphoniker - Orchestra dell’ Teatro Comunale di Bologna - City of London Sinfonia - Orchestra of Opera North - Orchestra of Welsh National Opera - Southbank Sinfonia - Aurora Orchestra - Orpheus Sinfonia - National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

 
As assistant conductor Peter Selwyn has worked at the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, at European opera houses including Hamburg, Oslo and Strasbourg, at the Aldeburgh and Bregenz Festivals, and on opera projects with the BBCSO at the Proms and with the CBSO. In that capacity he worked with conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Richard Armstrong, Paul Daniel, David Parry, Frederic Chaslin and Günter Neuhold. In Nuremberg he assisted GMD Philippe Auguin on productions including Der Ring des Nibelungen, Meistersinger, Fidelio, Salome and Pelléas et Mélisande.

He is co-founder, and for 17 years was Artistic Director of the Internationales KammermusikFestival Nürnberg, for whom he has conducted The Rape of Lucretia, which was broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk, The Turn of the Screw, Owen Wingrave, Noye´s Fludde, Dido and Aeneas, The Soldier´s Tale, das babylonexperiment (Matthew King) and the premiere of Schau nicht zurück, Orfeo by Stefan Hakenberg, in a co-production with the Internationale Gluck Festspiele.

An experienced and passionate Wagnerian, he has worked on numerous Ring Cycles, as assistant at Bayreuth, Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Longborough, LPO and on the music staff at ROH. He returned to Bayreuth this and last summer as Musical Assistant on the new Ring Cycle, and has just completed a 3 year project conducting the innovative reduction of the the Ring Cycle by Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick for the Grimeborn Festival at the Hackney Empire. For the London Opera Company he conducted Die Walküre, and Tristan und Isolde at St John’s Smith Square.


Earlier in his career he joined the music staff of ENO before moving to the Royal Opera, where he assisted and played for many of the world's greatest conductors and singers. He also worked as repetiteur for Scottish Opera, Almeida Opera, Music Theatre Wales and the Batignano Festival in Italy and as music director on a number of projects with Opera Genesis at ROH, National Opera Studio, ENO Studio and Baylis Programme. Now a Professor at the Royal College of Music and Guest Coach on the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera, he is also in demand as course leader at various summer schools summer schools including Dartington, Glyndebourne Academy and New London Music Society. He has recently been appointed Principal Conductor of Lambeth Orchestra, one of London’s most established amateur orchestras.
 
Peter spent a year at the Mannheim / Heidelberg Hochschule für Musik before going to St. John’s College, Cambridge, to read Modern Languages. He then went to the Royal Academy of Music to study piano as a postgraduate, subsequently studying conducting with David Parry.
 
Last edited: March 2022
 
 
 
 
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