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Richard Laing has established a reputation as one of the most exciting and versatile conductors in Britain today, and has conducted extensively in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Awarded the sinfonia ViVA Conducting Scholarship in 2001 he has a continuing relationship with the orchestra, conducting them, in concerts across the UK. Richard is Music Director of the Birmingham-based opera company Operamus, Music Director of The Midlands Sinfonia, Nottingham Harmonic Society, Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra, Lancashire Youth Symphony Orchestra, Leicester Bach Choir and the Midlands Chorale; Artistic Director of the Leamington Chamber Orchestra; Associate Conductor of the virtuoso young ensemble Sinfonia Cymru, Associate Conductor of Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra in London, and a regular guest conductor with Queen’s Park Sinfonia, Hallam Sinfonia, Sinfonia of Birmingham, Chandos Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra. |
Richard’s operatic work has included Albert Herring, Hansel and Gretel and Noye’s Fludde (Operamus), La Traviata and La Bohème (Dartington Festival Opera), The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics (Birmingham Conservatoire), Adrian Cruft’s Dr Syn (Kent Opera) and Handel’s Orlando (Pigotts). He has accompanied many distinguished artists including Brigitte Engerer, Laszlo Hadady, Stephane Levesque, Anthony Halstead, Leonard Schreiber, Robert Hayward, Neil Jenkins, John Turner, Alan Hacker, Joanne Lunn and David LePage. Richard is a conductor and coach in the Department of Vocal and Operatic Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire where he works with Lionel Friend and Stephen Barlow; he has premiered dozens of new works, and has given several performances with Radio 1 DJ Bobby Friction, who has hailed him as “the Iggy Pop of classical music.” Richard is in demand as an adjudicator and coach at festivals and summer schools and as a leader of orchestral and choral workshops around the UK.
Richard gained his Master's Degree from the Birmingham Conservatoire after nine months of study, along with a postgraduate diploma in conducting and the Conservatoire's Postgraduate Prize for the most outstanding contribution to the musical life of the college. Subsequently he was supported by the Foyle Foundation to work intensively on operatic conducting at Dartington with Diego Masson.
Richard studied violin at the University of Illinois and the RNCM, and plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Orchestra of the Swan, Southern Sinfonia, the Welsh Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra da Camera, and as a guest leader for Queen’s Park Sinfonia, Sinfonia of Birmingham, Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra and Chandos Symphony Orchestra. In his limited spare time Richard pursues a wide range of academic interests: his undergraduate work in Manchester on John F. Kennedy’s policy in Vietnam won him the Kaiser Award for American History, and he has presented papers on subjects as diverse as Hollywood film, reality TV and the Ring cycle at the International Conferences on Film and Literature at Florida State University and the International Wagner Symposium at the University of Adelaide. Among his proudest achievements are being appointed Vice President of the University of Illinois Triathlon Club and having articles published in the iconic games magazine White Dwarf. Richard is married to the singer and psychologist Karen Wise; they are currently celebrating the recent birth of their first child, Elsa. |
