Peter Selwyn

Peter studied Modern Languages at Cambridge, then piano at the Royal Academy of Music. He began his career as a member of the ENO music staff, before moving to the Royal Opera, where he worked with some of the world’s greatest singers and conductors. He has a repertoire of over 120 operas, of which he has conducted around 60, for UK companies including Opera North, Welsh National Opera, English Touring Opera and Opera Holland Park and in Australia, Singapore, Hungary and the Czech Republic. During 8 years in Germany he worked as Head of Music and Kapellmeister at Staatstheater Nürnberg, spent a season at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and assisted for three seasons at the Bayreuther Festspiele on the millennial Ring Cycle. He co-founded and for nearly 20 years was co-Artistic Director of the Internationales Kammermusikfestival Nürnberg, where he conducted numerous Britten chamber operas and several operatic world premieres.

He has a large and varied symphonic repertoire and has worked with many orchestras and ensembles in Europe and UK including the Nürnberger Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestra dell’ Teatro Comunale di Bologna, City of London Sinfonia, Orchestras of Opera North and Welsh National Opera, Southbank Sinfonia, Aurora Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

An experienced and passionate Wagnerian, he has worked on numerous full Ring Cycles, at Bayreuth, ROH, Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Longborough Festival and with the LPO. In 2022 he concluded a 4-year project conducting Jonathan Dove’s innovative reduction of the Ring Cycle for the Grimeborn Festival at the Hackney Empire, conducted Tristan und Isolde at St John’s Smith Square for the London Opera Company, and returned to Bayreuth to assist on the new Ring Cycle.

He is a Professor at the Royal College of Music and a regular coach on the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the Royal Opera, where he also works regularly on the music staff. He is the newly appointed Principal Conductor of the Lambeth Orchestra, one of London’s oldest and finest amateur orchestras, and Music Director of the London Opera Company.

Current and future plans include conducting Die Walküre for London Opera Company, Ariadne auf Naxos for MusikfürMusik Kollektiv Berlin, Tosca and various concerts with the Lambeth Orchestra, and returns to Bayreuth, Longborough and LPO to assist on the Ring.

For further info please visit: www.peterselwyn.com