Stuart Stratford

Stuart Stratford read music at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, studying conducting with David Parry and later in Russia, at the Saint Petersburg State Conservatoire, Symphonic and Operatic Conducting Faculty, for three years with the legendary conducting teacher, Ilya Aleksandrovich Musin. He was the Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, in 1999 and 2000. Opera is at the core of his activities. In the UK Stuart has conducted for English National Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Birmingham Opera Company, Buxton Festival with repertoire including Giovanna d’Arco, The Barber of Seville, Khovanshchina, Orfeo ed Euridice, Don Giovanni, Satyagraha, Pagliacci, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Faust, The Turn of the Screw, Falstaff, La Boheme, Candide, Swanhunter (Dove),Tobias and the Angel (Dove), Ion (Param Vir), Kantan (Goehr), L’altra Euridice (Dove), Ariadne (Langer), The Embalmer (Batistelli). He has given the world staged premier of The Maiden in the Tower (Sibelius) and the UK staged premier of Kashchei the Immortal (Rimsky-Korsakov). He is a regular conductor at Opera Holland Park and has conducted performances of Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, Jenůfa, Iolanta, Káťa Kabanová, La Forza del Destino, L’amico Fritz, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, La Fanciulla del West and Il Trittico. Outside the UK Stuart has worked at the Finnish National Opera (Doctor Atomic), Hong Kong (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), at Theater St.Gallen, Switzerland (Un Ballo in Maschera), at the Birgitta Festival with the Estonian National Opera (Faust). He has conducted concerts with many of the UK orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Manchester Camerata and Viva Sinfonia. Abroad Stuart works with the Porto Symphony Orchestra, Remix Ensemble, Orchestra of the Algarve, Perm Opera and Ballet Theater, Ural Symphony Orchestra in Yekaterinburg where he gave the Russian premiere of Momentum (Turnage) and Airport Scenes (Dove). With the Australian Chamber Orchestra in Sydney he has recorded a joint Channel 4 and Australian Broadcasting Corporation film opera, The Eternity Man, which was broadcast in both the UK and Australia. Stuart has been appointed the Music Director of Scottish Opera from the 1st June 2015.