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Richard Farnes
05/12/2009
Richard Farnes read Music at King's College, Cambridge, where he was organ scholar, and went on to study at the National Opera Studio, Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music, where he conducted the first British production of Rossini's Journey to Reims.
At the Royal Academy he won both the Henry Wood and Philharmonia Chorus conducting scholarships, and was awarded a European Community Youth Orchestra Scholarship in 1988 for his contribution to the orchestra as its keyboard player. On completion of his studies he gained valuable experience working on the music staff of the Glyndebourne Festival, Scottish Opera and Opera Factory and won the 1990 British Reserve Insurance Competition for Young Conductors.
In September 2004 Richard Farnes was appointed Music Director of Opera North. This was the culmination of a long association with this most innovative of the UK’s opera companies, for whom he had already conducted a wide variety of repertoire including La traviata, Simon Holt’s The Nightingale’s to Blame, Giovanna d'Arco, Britten's Gloriana, Le Nozze di Figaro, Eugene Onegin and Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage. Since taking up this position he has conducted productions of Manon, Don Giovanni, La Rondine, Katya Kabanova, a new award winning production of Peter Grimes, and concert performances of Salome, Hansel and Gretel, and Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle which he also recorded for Chandos Records. The 2008 season included Verdi’s Falstaff and Macbeth and a revival of Peter Grimes. The 2009 season included Elektra in concert, David Sawer’s new opera Skin Deep, and Verdi’s Don Carlos.
Richard Farnes has also had a close association with Scottish Opera, conducting La Boheme, Tosca, The Magic Flute, L’elisir d’amore, David Horne’s Friend of the People, and a double bill of works by Param Vir, and Glyndebourne, conducting The Makropoulos Case and Peter Hall’s recent production of Otello at the Festival, and Albert Herring, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, La Bohème and Le Nozze di Figaro on tour throughout the UK. He returned to the Glyndebourne Festival in August 2005 with Jonathan Dove’s Flight.
Other opera engagements have included Simone Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House, The Cunning Little Vixen For English National Opera, Nabucco for New Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv, Falstaff, La Bohème and The Barber of Seville for English Touring Opera, Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona and Verdi's Macbeth for Graham Vick’s Birmingham Opera Company, The Cunning Little Vixen and The Rake's Progress for Opera Theatre Company in Dublin, and Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne for European Chamber Opera.
Concert engagements have included performances with the London Philharmonic, Haydn Chamber Orchestra, the English Northern Philharmonic, the Royal Opera House Orchestra in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. In 1992 Richard Farnes founded Equinox, a chamber orchestra and ensemble that aims to promote twentieth century repertoire to wider audiences and which has given a number of concerts at St John's Smith Square in London.
Book for Richard Farnes conducting the Orchestra of Opera North as part of Leeds International Concert Season
