Gary Matthewman made his professional conducting debut in 2018 directing the chamber orchestra in Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with soloists Mark Padmore and Roderick Williams at The Sage, Gateshead. Since then, he has swiftly gained recognition as an emerging conducting talent focused on opera and oratorio – building on the skills and expertise he developed during twenty years working at the highest international level as a song recital pianist, repetiteur and vocal coach. His performances as an opera conductor have been widely praised by the critics (see below).
Recent and future conducting engagements include an Easter concert for Cape Town Opera with the Cape Town Philharmonic, Jonathan Dove's Mansfield Park for the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington, Verdi's Ballo in maschera and Don Carlo for Opéra de Baugé; Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia for Ulster Touring Opera; highlights from Mozart's Idomeneo, Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin for Brunswick Vocal Arts (a charity in support of student/early career opera singers); Donizetti's Roberto Devereux and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice for Chelsea Opera Group; the Netherlands premiere of Argento's Postcard from Morocco for the Dutch National Opera Academy in Amsterdam and The Hague; opera scenes at the Royal College of Music; the Aria Reading masterclass with singers and the orchestra of the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria; and Debussy's La Mer as well as piano concertos by Rachmaninoff and Ravel with Peter Donohoe, Roelof Temmingh and the St Cecilia Orchestra in Ripon Cathedral.
In early 2019 Gary was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of London's Orion Orchestra. Highlights from their performances together include: Handel Messiah; Fauré Requiem; Beethoven Symphony No.4; Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite; Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf; operatic arias by Handel, Mozart and Strauss; Mozart Piano Concerto in C minor K491 and Violin Concerto in A K219; Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1; and works for Strings by Purcell, Holst, Finzi, Sibelius and Grieg. Their choral and soloist partners have included: the Choir of King's College London; the Strand Consort; Imogen Cooper (piano); Gemma Summerfield (soprano); Julien Van Mellaerts (baritone); BBC broadcaster Zeb Soanes; Joe Pritchard (cello); Akiko Ono (violin); and Jonathan Stone (violin). Gary led Orion Orchestra's commissioning and performance of two world premieres: Smile, O voluptuous cool-breath'd Earth! – a choral setting of a Walt Whitman text, by Simon Rowland-Jones – and Prelude (with Bird, Cicadas and Bells) by Peter Longworth. He stepped down in 2022, to focus more exclusively on opera and vocal repertoire.
As an assistant conductor in opera, Gary has been engaged by Glyndebourne, Opera North, La Monnaie Brussels, Cape Town Opera, and the late Sir Graham Vick’s Birmingham Opera Company (with the CBSO), working on a wide range of repertoire: Donizetti L’elisir d’amore; Bizet Les Pêcheurs de Perles; Puccini La bohème; Wagner Das Rheingold; Shostakovich Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Britten Turn of the Screw; and Stravinsky The Rake’s Progress.
For conducting enquiries/engagements, please contact Rachel Walters or Sophie Dand:
rachel@dwcreativeconsultancy.com
+44 (0) 7 747 487 993
sophie@dwcreativeconsultancy.com
+44 (0) 7 814 224 313
---
Critical praise for Gary's operatic conducting performances:
Opera Magazine
'[Gary Matthewman] clearly has the makings of a dynamic opera conductor. I haven't heard Chelsea Opera Group's semi-professional band play with this edge-of-seat accuracy and panache in many a season. Matthewman has set a high bar for COG's incoming music director ... An unforgettable evening.'
forumopera.com (translated from French)
'His conducting always pays careful attention to the vocal line, while creating intense dramatic effects. ... He produces an orchestral sound that is a constant joy; to this must be added the pleasure which results from the way in which he conducts the voices.'
The Times *****
'What an utterly exhilarating evening ... The conductor Gary Matthewman whipped up the Chelsea Opera Group's lively orchestra and chorus with sure dramatic instincts.'
opera-online.com/fr (translated from French)
‘A triumph … the opera unfolds congruously thanks, in the main, to the quality of the direction of the English conductor Gary Matthewman. Within a few bars he made the orchestra sound transfigured in his hands, knowing how to balance his forces, highlight timbres, underline a phrase and use it, punctuate it clearly and vibrantly, characterize the moods: he did a superb job.’
forumopera.com (translated from French)
‘The magisterial direction of Gary Matthewman breathes constant life into this story. … The commitment of each performer, with an orchestra brought to incandescence by such exemplary conducting will remain etched in the memory of the listeners.’
Music OMH *****
'The orchestra, under the baton of Gary Matthewman, was shatteringly good from the outset ... the drama and excitement brought to the score were matched by equal levels of clarity and precision.'
Plays To See *****
'This was one of those evenings where the skill and persona of the conductor lifted everyone's level. Remarkable in one who has so recently transitioned from the keyboard to the podium, Gary Matthewman was fully on top of the demands of the score, deftly supporting and coordinating his soloists (with no monitors to help), while keeping the chorus on their toes, and alternately reining in or unleashing his orchestral forces to preserve a proper balance. The Chelsea Opera Group has helped launch many a distinguished conducting career and their talent-spotting skills show no signs of waning.'
Opera Today
'Gary Matthewman drew tidy playing from the orchestra, who relished the dramatic surges of Donizetti's score. This was a stirring and truly engaging performance ... '
Planet Hugill *****
'Gary Matthewman drew fine playing from the orchestra from the first moments of the overture, and throughout the evening the orchestra was on superb form. Matthewman's accompaniment was finely sympathetic ... his was a performance that flowed.'