Alpesh Chauhan OBE | BIOGRAPHY
Praised for his “lithe, expressive and bold conducting style” [Seen & Heard], British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is Principal Guest Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company and the recently appointed Principal Conductor & Musical Advisor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
Alpesh's 26/27 season includes debuts with Orchestre National de Lyon and Bremer Philharmoniker, and returns to Vancouver Symphony, Orchestre National de Belgique, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, BBCNOW, City of Birmingham, Stavanger and Gavle Symphony Orchestras.
His long-standing relationship with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker is lauded both for its creative and bold programming and special audience connection. Recent symphonic highlights include Atlanta Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle, Utah, Detroit, Toronto and National Symphony of Washington, BBC Symphony, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, La Fenice and RAI Torino. Alpesh regularly collaborates with renowned soloists including Karen Cargill, Sir Stephen Hough, Hilary Hahn, Johannes Moser, Pablo Ferrandez, Benjamin Grosvenor, Pavel Kolesnikov, Simone Lamsma and Simon Hofele.
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 recent Keith Warner production of Tippett’s New Year being praised for its "exemplary music-making" [The Guardian] and Judith Weir’s “women.life.song” recently being nominated for a RPS award. Past productions include ‘RhineGOLD’ 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. Further opera highlights include Turandot and West Side Story. 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 a position he held until 2020. As Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, he appeared at the BBC Proms in 2022 and established a critically-acclaimed Tchaikovsky cycle with Chandos Records: “Spell-binding Tchaikovsky packs an emotional punch” [BBC Music Magazine].
A keen exponent of contemporary music and has performed works by composers including Thomas Adès, Anna Clyne, Sofia Gubaidulina, Zakir Hussain, Elena Kats-Chernin, Nicole Lizée, Jessie Montgomery, John Psathas, Steve Reich, Mark Simpson, and George Walker. Alpesh is also a patron of Young Sounds UK, a charity supporting talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds on their musical journeys. He has collaborated with ensembles including National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and symphony orchestras of the UK conservatoires. 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.
In 2022 Alpesh received an OBE in Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s 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’.
This biography should not be edited without permission from Askonas Holt.
