Mark Shanahan is an Irish conductor [1] and conducting teacher.
Mark Shanahan was born in Manchester, where he attended Chetham's School. He later attended the University of London and studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with the Sir Henry Wood Scholarship. [2] While still studying at the Royal Academy of Music he won the first prize of the first NAYO Conducting Competition.
Mark Shanahan is active as an opera and orchestral conductor, and he has been associated with the English National Opera. Mark Shanahan has conducted operas in theatres such as La Fenice, Théâtre Graslin, Nationale Reisopera, Opera North, Grange Park Opera, Opera Ireland, English Touring Opera, Marseilles Opera and the Frankfurt Opera. [3]
Guest conducting engagements include concerts at halls such as the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Centre and Royal Albert Hall with orchestras including the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. [3] He is also Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and Artistic director of the Forest Philharmonic Orchestra. [3]
Shanahan is a guest professor of conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, guest conductor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and a Visiting conducting Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. [4] [5]
Sir Simon Denis Rattle is a British-German conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2002 to 2018. He has been the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra since September 2017. Among the world's leading conductors, in a 2015 Bachtrack poll, he was ranked by music critics as one of the world's best living conductors.
Sir John Barbirolli was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings.
Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the English National Opera and Welsh National Opera and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also specialized in Czech music as a whole, producing many recordings for the Czech label Supraphon.
Sir Richard Armstrong is an English conductor. He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar.
Sir Charles Barnard Groves CBE was an English conductor. He was known for the breadth of his repertoire and for encouraging contemporary composers and young conductors.
Bramwell Tovey was a British conductor and composer.
Peter Manning FRSA is a British conductor and violinist.
Semyon Mayevich Bychkov is a Soviet-born conductor. He currently holds the position of chief conductor and artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic.
Okko Tapani Kamu is a Finnish orchestral conductor and violinist.
Sir Mark Philip Elder is a British conductor. He is currently music director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England.
Andris Nelsons is a Latvian conductor who is currently the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He has previously served as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, chief conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, and music director of the Latvian National Opera.
Edward Gardner is an English conductor. While still studying at the Royal Academy of Music in the late 1990s, he began his professional career as a choral conductor and repetiteur. Among other early posts, he was music director of Glyndebourne on Tour from 2004 to 2007. Gardner was music director of English National Opera from 2007 to 2015. From 2010 to 2016, he was principal guest conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and since 2013, he has been principal guest conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2021, he has been principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2022, he also became artistic advisor of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, where he is scheduled to become the music director in 2024.
Ludovic Morlot is a French conductor.
Rory Macdonald is a Scottish conductor.
Peter Bassano is an English conductor.
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Franko Božac is a classical accordion performer.
Derek Gleeson is an Irish/American musician. Born in Dublin, Ireland. He is currently the music director and conductor of the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra and has been the conductor at the Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival. Since 2012 Gleeson is also music director & conductor of the Rachmaninov Festival Orchestra. Since January 2016 Gleeson is Principal Guest Conductor or The Harbin Symphony Orchestra, Harbin, China. He also composes musical scores for film and television and of symphonic music for the concert hall.
Black conductors are musicians of African, Caribbean, African-American ancestry and other members of the African diaspora who are musical ensemble leaders who direct classical music performances, such as an orchestral or choral concerts, or jazz ensemble big band concerts by way of visible gestures with the hands, arms, face and head. Conductors of African descent are rare, as the vast majority are male and Caucasian.