 Orchestra
Principal Guest Conductor - Kenneth Montgomery
The
British conductor Kenneth Montgomery (Belfast, 1943) studied at the Royal
College of Music in London, where he was a pupil of Sir Adrian Boult.
He continued his studies in Hamburg (Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt), Siena
(Sergiu Celibidache) and with Sir John Pritchard.
Kenneth Montgomery began his career at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera
and the English National Opera (then known as Sadler’s Wells Opera).
In 1973 he was appointed musical director of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta
and two years later was made musical director of Glyndebourne Touring
Opera. The same year he made his debut at the Royal Opera House Covent
Garden, conducting Le nozze di Figaro.
Following his debut with the Nederlandse Opera in Cavalli’s L'Ormindo in 1970, he quickly made a name for himself in the Netherlands and, in
1975, was appointed principal conductor of the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra
(the Omroep Orkest, later the Radio Symfonie Orkest) and subsequently
of the Dutch Radio Choir (the Groot Omroepkoor) as well. During his many
years with the Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, he conducted a large
number of broadcast performances for the Dutch radio.
His regular appearances with the Netherlands Opera include Ravel’s
L’heure espagnole, Falla’s El
retablo de maese Pedro, Janáček's
Kát’a Kabanová and Humperdinck’s Hänsel
und Gretel. With the Nationale Reisopera, he conducted Mozart’s
Idomeneo during the 2002-03 season.
 In addition to his many international guest appearances
at opera houses in the United States (Santa Fe, San Diego and Baltimore),
Canada (Toronto and Vancouver), Australia (Australian State Opera, Adelaide),
France (Opéra
de Paris and Marseille), Belgium (Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie,
Brussels) and Italy, where he conducted Handel’s La
Resurrezione with
great success at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan at the start of the 1994-95
season, Kenneth Montgomery has held a number of established opera posts.
In 1985 he was appointed artistic and musical director of Opera Northern
Ireland and in 1991 was made director of opera studies at the Royal Conservatory
in The Hague, where a chair in opera studies was set up in his name.
Following the amalgamation of the opera studies departments at The Hague
and Amsterdam conservatories, Kenneth Montgomery was the artistic director
of the newly formed Opera Academy for two years. He continues to give
conducting masterclasses at the Royal Conservatory.
Kenneth Montgomery’s work in opera covers a wide repertory, ranging
from baroque to contemporary music theatre: examples include Cavalli’s
L’Ormindo (in his own version for the Nederlandse Opera
Stichting), Mozart’s Lucia Silla, the Dutch premières
of Rossini’s
Otello (1999) and Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide (2002),
and performances of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron during
the Holland Festival (1986), Britten’s Death in Venice at
a VARA radio concert in 2001 and Britten’s Peter Grimes for
the Nationale Reisopera in January 2005. This year he conducted Massenet’s Cendrillon for
Santa Fe Opera and Handel’s Julius Caesar for San Diego
Opera.
Kenneth Montgomery is also well-known internationally as an orchestral
conductor. In addition to his many appearances with Dutch symphony orchestras,
he has been a regular guest conductor with the Orchestre Philharmonique
de Radio France, the Orchestre National de France, the Ensemble Orchestral
de Paris, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Bournemouth Symphony
Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the CBC
Vancouver Orchestra and symphony orchestras in Belgium, Germany (Nuremberg
and Münster), the United States (Detroit, Baltimore, Houston, Minneapolis
and San Antonio), Mexico (Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM) and
New Zealand.
Many of his recordings have been issued on CD. See also www.kennethmontgomery.net
Season 2005/2006
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