Brian Wright has been Music Director and Conductor of Maidstone Symphony Orchestra since 1990 and celebrated their centenary in 2011 with the premičre of Three Portraits from Arthur, commissioned from John McCabe.
Brian studied conducting as a Gulbenkian scholar in London and Munich, working closely with George Hurst, Jascha Horenstein and Rudolf Kempe. He won the Silver Medal in the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition at La Scala, Milan, and Second Prize in the Rupert Foundation Competition with the London Symphony Orchestra. He was Assistant to André Previn and the LSO and Associate Conductor to the BBC, conducting concerts and broadcasts with all the BBC's orchestras.
Brian won particular praise for performances of Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts and Liszt’s Christus at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as for UK premičres of Lutoslawski and Penderecki and the world premičre of Robert Simpson’s 7th Symphony. He conducted the BBCSO for Ballet Rambert in an acclaimed BBC2 production of Stravinsky's Pulcinella, available on DVD. In 2005 he conducted the opening concert of BBC Radio 3’s “Beethoven Experience”.
Brian has conducted the LSO, BBCSO, RPO, Philharmonia and London Philharmonic at London’s Royal Festival and Barbican Halls. He has been a guest conductor with all of the other major British orchestras and also with orchestras in Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Mexico, Romania, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the USA. He has toured in Europe with the BBCSO, in Europe and in the Far East with the RPO and has recorded for the EMI, Decca, Teldec, Crystal and Regis Tro labels.
Brian enjoys a close association with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, regularly conducting in their London International Series and touring China in 2000/1. Two of his concerts with the RPO in 2010/11 featured Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Recently he was a guest conductor in Norway and Slovenia, and with the George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest, Romania, where he returned in 2011 and returns in 2012/13.
Brian is particularly renowned for his performances of the symphonic choral repertoire. He was Conductor of the BBC Symphony Chorus for 10 years and has been Music Director of Goldsmiths Choral Union in London for 40 years. A highlight of 2006/7 was an acclaimed broadcast performance of Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts for the RPO at the Royal Albert Hall. In 2011/12 he conducted Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony and Elgar’s Enigma Variations for the RPO at the RAH and 2012/13 brings Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the RFH and Handel’s Messiah at the RAH.
For further information:
see Brian's website