MICHEAL ROSEWELLConductor
Michael Rosewell is Music Director of English Touring Opera. He is also Artistic Director of the London Phoenix Ensemble and Director of Opera for the Benjamin Britten International Opera School at the Royal College of Music, London.
At the age of 15, Michael Rosewell won the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music’s Gold Medal and Sheila Mossman Memorial Prize, for piano. He went on to study conducting, piano and double bass at the Royal College of Music, where he was awarded a scholarship and major prizes in conducting and piano accompaniment. His teachers at the RCM included Stephen Savage, Rodney Slatford, Robert Sutherland and Norman del Mar.
Michael Rosewell began his conducting career in Germany, notably the Staatstheater Kassel, Staatstheater Wiesbaden and the Nationaltheater Mannheim, before joining the music staff of the Vienna State Opera. In Vienna he assisted Claudio Abbado and worked closely with many of the world’s leading singers and conductors. In Britain, Michael has worked for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and conducted at English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Kent Opera, the London Handel Festival and the Aldeburgh, Perth, Bath and Buxton Festivals. As Associate Conductor for the London Handel Society, he has helped introduce many rarely performed Handel operas to the London stage.
In concert he has appeared in London, Leipzig, Vienna, Paris, Stuttgart, and Zagreb with numerous European orchestras, including the London Mozart Players, the BT Scottish Ensemble, the Rheinische Philharmonie, Koblenz, the Heidelberger Philharmonie, and the London Phoenix Ensemble. He has recorded for the BBC, Radio France Musique, and Südwestfunk Baden-Baden and has toured as pianist in concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Michael Rosewell has a close affinity with the works of Benjamin Britten. He was invited to the Aldeburgh Festival to conduct A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM in the Jubilee Hall, the first time this work has been heard in the original venue since its world premiere in 1960 conducted by the composer himself. Other notable Britten successes include the American Opera Association’s top award for performances of THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA in the Patricia Corbett Performing Arts Centre, Cincinnati. In 2004, under the auspices of the Britten/Pears Foundation, he conducted the world premiere of Britten’s early Ballet PLYMOUTH TOWN.
Previous engagements also include Holst’s SAVITRI at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, TURN OF THE SCREW at the Buxton Festival, DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE for English National Opera, Ravel’s L’HEURE ESPAGNOLE, L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM and Monteverdi’s POPPEA in the Britten Theatre, London, IL TABARRO, GIANNI SCHICCHI, EUGENE ONEGIN, KATYA KABANOVA, NORMA, JENUFA, DON GIOVANNI, TESEO, MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO for English Touring Opera and concerts with the London Mozart Players with Sir Thomas Allen at the Mayfield Festival and the English Chamber Orchestra.
Engagements in 2012 include EUGENE ONEGIN for English Touring Opera
