Levon Parikian is much in demand as Guest Conductor with orchestras throughout Britain. He is Principal Conductor of several London-based orchestras, and the City of Oxford Orchestra. He is also Artistic Director of the Rehearsal Orchestra. He has worked extensively with students and youth orchestras, including the Royal Holloway University of London, where he also taught conducting for many years. In 2014 he conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra in a rerecording of the theme tune for Hancock’s Half Hour for The Missing Hancocks on BBC Radio 4.
Levon studied conducting privately with Michael Rose and David Parry, and at the Canford Summer School with George Hurst. He then pursued his studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire with the great Russian teacher Ilya Musin.
Levon is also an active writer, and his first book, Waving, Not Drowning, was released in 2013. It was described as “hilarious and wise” by fellow conductor and author Kenneth Woods, “a must-read” by Classical Music magazine, and “mercifully short” by Levon himself. A second book, Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? is in the pipeline.
Levon first conducted the Rehearsal orchestra in May 2000 and was appointed Artistic Director to succeed Harry Legge in April 2002.
Having read music at Queen’s College, Oxford, and studied at the Guildhall School of Music, Anthony went on to the London Opera Centre, where he was subsequently invited to join the staff.
Anthony’s work for the major British opera companies includes many seasons at Glyndebourne as Principal Coach and Assistant Conductor. He has also worked in Amsterdam, Brussels, Gothenburg, at Opera Australia for ten seasons and at Bayreuth for six seasons, where he assisted on the Barenboim/Kupfer Ring Cycle and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Anthony spent fourteen years as Head of Music at English National Opera, where he conducted Dido and Aeneas, Orpheus and Eurydice, Lulu and Alcina. He was subsequently Music Advisor at ENO and Director of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music. Between 2009 and 2017, Anthony was Associate Music Director of Opera Australia.
After initial training as a violinist, Christopher Adey was a member of the Hallé and London Philharmonic Orchestras. His conducting debut in 1973 led immediately to his appointment as Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 1973–1976.
In addition to international conducting engagements, Christopher maintains a profound commitment to guest conducting with county, national and international youth orchestras where he is one of Britain's most renowned orchestral trainers. He was Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales from 1996–2002 and appointed Principal Conductor of the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra from 1998–2004.
Christopher was Professor of Conducting at the Royal College of Music 1979–1992. He was honoured by Fellowships of the Royal College of Music in 1989 and of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2003. Christopher Adey’s book Orchestral Performance: a Guide for Conductors and Players was published by Faber in April 1998 and reissued in 2009.
Stephen studied at the Royal College of Music under the renowned conductor Norman Del Mar, and finds himself increasingly in demand with a wide variety of European orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Hallé, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, ERT National Symphonic Orchestra (Athens), Brighton Philharmonic and Ulster Orchestras. A progressively challenging conducting schedule now affords Stephen the opportunity to conduct both in the UK and abroad.
Timothy conducts and presents concerts throughout Europe. He is a regular guest conductor with the London Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, and works with many of the leading British and European orchestras. He has a long-standing association with the Manchester Camerata and in 2006 was appointed Principal Conductor of the Cambridge Philharmonic. He has guest-conducted orchestras in Bosnia, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Macedonia, Slovenia and the US and broadcasts regularly on TV and radio.
In the opera house Timothy has conducted productions for Opera North, English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Almeida Opera and ROH Linbury. He has also conducted opera for New York’s American Lyric Theater and at the Buxton and Aldeburgh Festivals. Timothy is well-known as a conductor of contemporary music and has a particular association with the music of Thomas Adès.
Recent highlights have included premieres of works by Edward Rushton and Peter Maxwell Davies with the LSO, his debut in China with the RPO, a Henze double-bill for the Guildhall School of Music and the LSO BMW Open Air Classics concert for 10,000 people in Trafalgar Square. This season he makes his debut in Canada, Romania and Serbia.
David is Head of Music at the Royal Opera, having first begun work there as a répétiteur in 1971, following his studies at Queen’s College, Oxford, and the London Opera Centre.
For the Royal Opera, David has conducted operas by Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, Janáček, Strauss, Smetana, Britten and Tippett. Elsewhere, he has conducted operas by Zemlinsky, Bizet, Wagner and Britten, world premieres of smaller-scale music-theatre pieces, and worked with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberger Symphoniker and the London Sinfonietta.
As an accompanist, David recorded lieder with Hildegard Behrens for EMI and has also accompanied at the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Musikverein, Vienna. Other recordings include harpsichord and fortepiano continuo in Mozart and Rossini for Decca and BMG. David teaches opera at the Royal College of Music in London.
Robert has a wealth of orchestral experience. He has played under many great conductors including Sir Georg Solti, Kurt Sanderling and Günther Herbig, but it was when he led the orchestra at the Institute of Advanced Musical Studies in Montreux under Rudolf Kempe that he was inspired to take up the baton.
Robert was for 33 years Principal Second Violin of the BBC Philharmonic and was previously co-leader of the orchestra of the Royal Ballet. He is Artistic Director of the Bolton Symphony Orchestra and also works with North Staffordshire, Chester and Shrewsbury Symphony Orchestras. His connection with the Rehearsal Orchestra goes back to the seventies when he led the orchestra under Harry Legge for many years. Robert has conducted on the Rehearsal Orchestra’s annual Edinburgh residential course since 2001.
Peter Donohoe was born in Manchester in 1953 and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and in Paris. Following his unprecedented success in the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition he has developed a distinguished international career in Europe, the USA, the Far East and Australasia.
Peter formed his own orchestra in 1987 and has since been a guest conductor with several of the world's great chamber orchestras, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Limberg Orchestra in the Netherlands. He was Principal Conductor of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group during its initial seasons in the early 1990s. His connections with the Rehearsal Orchestra reach back many years and he has been a frequent and welcome guest soloist.