Credit: Michele Monasta

Alpesh Chauhan OBE

CONDUCTOR
Music Director: Birmingham Opera Company
Principal Guest Conductor: Düsseldorfer Symphoniker

Representation: General Management

British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is Principal Guest Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company.

Forthcoming 2024/25 season highlights includes debuts with Stavanger, Detroit, and Vancouver Symphonies, Orchestre National de Belgique, PhilZuid and Orchestre de Auvergne including at the Evian Festival. He returns to the Oslo Philharmonic, City of Birmingham, Melbourne, and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, BBC Scottish, BBC Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, and Orchestra de La Fenice. With his Dusseldorf orchestra, he conducts Das Lied von der Erde as well as opening their new season with Korngold’s Symphony.

Recent guest conducting projects also include with Atlanta Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, West Australian Symphony, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Toronto Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Malmo Symphony. He also recently programmed Schumann’s Konzertstück with Odense Symphony and four horns of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Other regular soloists include Hilary Hahn, Pablo Ferrandez, and Sir Stephen Hough.

As Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company, Alpesh champions a unique approach to bringing opera to the wider community of Birmingham — following his mentorship by the company’s founder, the late Sir Graham Vick — with their most recent Keith Warner production of Tippett’s New Year being praised for its “exemplary music-making.” (The Guardian) Past productions include Rheingold, which was broadcast on SkyArts and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for which Chauhan was named Newcomer of the Year at the 2021 International Opera Awards.

Chauhan is particularly well-known for his interpretations of the late Romantic and twentieth-century repertoire, with 2024 including Bruckner’s seventh, eighth and ninth symphonies within the anniversary year. He also champions contemporary composers such as Thomas Adès, Anna Clyne, Chaya Czernowin, Henri Dutilleux, Osvaldo Golijov, Sofia Gubaidulina, Zakir Hussain, Nicole Lizée, Jessie Montgomery, John Psathas, Steve Reich, Mark Simpson, and George Walker.

Following his debut in 2015, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma where he performed complete cycles of the symphonies by Beethoven and Brahms. In the field of opera, alongside the recently critically acclaimed productions of New Year and Rheingold, other notable opera titles include Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, West Side Story, and productions of Turandot, including at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia.

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.

Former Associate Conductor of BBC Scottish Symphony — with whom he appeared at the BBC Proms in 2022 — he continues to appear regularly as a guest conductor and currently partners with them on a Tchaikovsky cycle with Chandos Records. Their first two albums were released to critical acclaim in 2023 and 2024: “Spell-binding Tchaikovsky packs an emotional punch.” (BBC Music Magazine)

Born in Birmingham, Alpesh studied cello at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the Royal Northern College of Music to pursue the prestigious Master’s Conducting Course. Alpesh received an OBE in Queen Elizabeth II’s 2022 New Year’s Honours for Services to the Arts and was conferred an Honorary Fellow of the RNCM in 2024. In 2022 he received the Conductor Award from the Italian National Association of Music Critics for ‘Miglior Direttore’.

Artist Website: www.alpeshchauhan.com

Promoters please note: We update our biographies regularly and ask that they are not altered without permission. For updated versions, please e-mail: Ben Horden

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News

Chauhan debuts with Belgian National at BOZAR

October 4th, 2024

Tonight British conductor Alpesh Chauhan makes his debut with the Belgian National Orchestra at BOZAR in Brussels. Taking to the podium with a varied programme of Adès, Grieg and Respighi, this concert also marks his first collaboration with pianist Andrei Korobeinikov. Following recent successful debuts with Stavanger and PhilZuid, this marks the third consecutive debutRead more ›

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Conductor Alpesh Chauhan’s debut with Stavanger Symphony

September 20th, 2024

This evening conductor Alpesh Chauhan makes his debut with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. In a programme of music from the British Isles, Chauhan takes to the podium of the orchestra’s home at the Stavanger Konserthus for Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’ and Vaughan Williams’ ‘On Wenlock Edge’ with soloist Andrew Staples. With a busy start to his season,Read more ›

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JBM artists: worldwide summer festivals 2024

July 22nd, 2024

This summer JBM artists will be performing at festivals across the globe.   19 July – 11 August: Bregenz Festival, Austria Enrique Mazzola conducts the Vienna Symphony for Weber’s Der Freischütz. Find out more. 20 July: Virtuoso and Belcanto Festival, Italy Viviane Hagner and pianist Till Fellner perform a programme of Mozart, Ligeti, and BrahmsRead more ›

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Alpesh Chauhan conducts the opening night of Tippett’s New Year

July 5th, 2024

This Sunday, Alpesh Chauhan takes to the podium for the opening night of Tippett’s New Year with Birmingham Opera Company and the CBSO. Staged in Birmingham’s specially created ‘Dream Tent’ and directed by Keith Warner, the opera tells the intertwining stories of Somewhere Today and Nowhere Tomorrow with an international cast supported by more thanRead more ›

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Chauhan debuts with WASO

April 26th, 2024

This evening, British conductor Alpesh Chauhan kicks-off a series of concerts with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. For his first visit to Perth, Chauhan takes to the podium for Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 12 and Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor with violinist and WASO Concert Master Laurence Jackson. Next weekend, the orchestra is joined byRead more ›

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Reviews

‘Rhinegold’ with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Birmingham Opera Company

“…The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s sound [was] controlled with an absolutely sure hand by the company’s music director Alpesh Chauhan (who was superb throughout).”

Ivan Hewitt, The Telegraph (*****) – July 2021

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Discography

Tchaikovsky
For this, his début recording for Chandos, Alpesh Chauhan has chosen a collection of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic fantasias, alongside the Overture and Polonaise from the comic opera Cherevichki.
CHANDOS (2023)

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Artist Manager

James Brown
jb@jamesbrownmanagement.com
+44 (0) 1223 641750

Laura Baker
lb@jamesbrownmanagement.com
+44 (0) 7999 027026

Associate Artist Manager

Ben Horden
bh@jamesbrownmanagement.com
+44 (0) 1223 641753