Conductor
The young British conductor Geoffrey Paterson is admired for his impressive grasp of detail, responsiveness to musicians, and his ability to shape and make music from the most complex scores, with natural authority. Highlights of 2018/19 include debuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Aurora Orchestra. Paterson also conducts two productions with Royal Danish Opera and other appearances include with Bavarian State Opera, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Music Theatre Wales, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and London Sinfonietta, with whom Paterson appears in a range of projects and has recorded with them for the NMC label, including a disc with jazz saxophonist Marius Neset.
Last season Paterson made his Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment debut, leading the orchestra in a film score adaption of Strauss’ great comic opera Der Rosenkavalier in London and Vienna. He previously conducted Porgy and Bess for the Royal Danish Opera, La bohème for Opera North, Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Glyndebourne on Tour, and HK Gruber’s Gloria von Jaxtberg at the Bregenz Festival and for the Royal Opera, where he has been a regular guest ever since joining the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme. Also at Covent Garden he has conducted Massenet’s Le Portrait de Manon (recorded for Opera Rara), Julian Philips’ How the Whale Became, Søren Nils Eichberg’s Glare, and the world premiere of Birtwistle’s chamber opera double-bill The Corridor and The Cure, which he then took to the Aldeburgh Festival and Holland Festival.
In 2016 he gave the UK premiere of Eötvös’ The Golden Dragon at the 2016 Buxton Festival. Recent symphonic highlights have included appearances with the Orchestre National de Lille, National Orchestra of Belgium and Basel Sinfonietta, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Hamburg Symphony, with whom he performed George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill and Berio’s Recital I.
Geoffrey Paterson studied at Cambridge University where he also took composition lessons with Alexander Goehr followed by studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Having won both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 Leeds Conductors Competition, Paterson went on to participate in the Luzern Festival conducting masterclasses with Pierre Boulez. During his time on the Royal Opera House Young Artist Programme he assisted conductors including Antonio Pappano, Mark Elder, Andris Nelsons and Daniele Gatti on an extensive repertoire. For two seasons he worked in Bayreuth as musical assistant to Kirill Petrenko for Der Ring des Nibelungen.
