Alpesh Chauhan
Biography
British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is Principal Guest Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company. His most recent collaboration with the latter, Wagner’s Das Rheingold, was received to critical acclaim.
Forthcoming highlights this season include debuts with the Seattle Symphony with Hilary Hahn, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Hallé, the Melbourne, Adelaide and North Carolina Symphony Orchestras, Poznan Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Symphony Orchestra of India, as well as returns to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, Filarmonica Toscanini, Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Antwerp Symphony. Further to this, he conducts several recording and symphonic projects with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, and community projects with Birmingham Opera Company.
Alpesh frequently appears as guest conductor with acclaimed international orchestras including the London Symphony, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre National d’Île de France, Orchestre National de Lille, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He enjoys collaborations with distinguished soloists such as Nicola Benedetti, Colin Currie, Pablo Ferrández, Veronika Eberle, Ilya Gringolts, Benjamin Grosvenor, Stephen Hough, Leila Josefowicz, Pavel Kolesnikov, Johannes Moser, Arcadi Volodos, and singers Karen Cargill, Markus Werba and Christianne Stotijn among others. Following his outstanding debut in 2015, he was appointed Principal Conductor of Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma and performed and recorded much of the great symphonic repertoire, including a complete cycle of Brahms’ symphonies. Alongside the recently critically acclaimed Das Rheingold, other notable opera titles include Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, West Side Story and a production of Turandot in Valencia at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía.
A keen advocate of music education for young people, Alpesh is a patron of Awards for Young Musicians, a UK charity supporting talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds on their musical journeys. He has also worked with ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and the symphony orchestras of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Royal Northern College of Music. He was the conductor of the 2015 BBC Ten Pieces film which brought the world of classical music into secondary schools across the UK and received a distinguished BAFTA award.
Born in Birmingham, Alpesh studied cello under Eduardo Vassallo at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the RNCM to pursue the prestigious Master’s Conducting Course. Alpesh has studied with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and was mentored by Andris Nelsons and Edward Gardner in his post as Assistant Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2016. Birmingham Opera Company’s 2019 production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk directed by the late Sir Graham Vick was a triumph and led to Chauhan being named ‘Newcomer of the Year’ in the 2021 International Opera Awards. In 2022 he was delighted to receive the Conductor Award from the Italian National Association of Music Critics for ‘Miglior Direttore’ for concerts across Italy in 2021.
Alpesh was honored to receive an OBE in HRH The Queen's New Year's Honors in January 2022 for services to the arts.