Roy Goodman

Roy Goodman is Principal Guest Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra, Director Emeritus of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and Honorary President of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus. He has worked as guest conductor with over 120 orchestras & opera companies worldwide—from Carnegie Hall, New York to the Royal Albert Hall Proms in London and from Berlin Philharmonic Hall to the Sydney Opera House. In 2011 Radio New Zealand affectionately named him the 'Rafa Nadal' of conductors! Goodman is well known for his work as director and founder of The Brandenburg Consort (1975-2001), as co-director/founder of The Parley of Instruments (1978-1986), co-founder of the London Handel Orchestra (in 1981), Principal Conductor of the Hanover Band (1986-1994), Music Director for fifteen years of the European Union Baroque Orchestra (1989-2004), Principal Conductor of the Händel Festspiele at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe (1990-1998), the first Principal Conductor of Umeå Symphony Orchestra & Northern Opera Sweden (1995-2001), Conductor for seventeen years with the Västerås Sinfonietta in Sweden (1995-2011), Music Director of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra in Winnipeg (1999-2005) the first Principal Conductor of Holland Symfonia & Dutch National Ballet (2003-2006), Conductor of the Bachkoor Holland accompanied by the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw Kamerorkest (2003-2010), and Principal Guest Conductor of the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand (2007-2011). Born in January 1951, Roy Goodman achieved international fame with King’s College Choir as the boy soloist in Allegri’s Miserere (Decca 1963). Already in 1970 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and he completed his studies with a violin performer's ARCM and a music teacher's diploma. In 1979 Goodman was a founder member of Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, then he joined Trevor Pinnock's English Concert, and in 1987 became the first Concertmaster of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (collaborating with Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Simon Rattle, Frans Brüggen & Ivan Fischer). Also during the 1980's he directed for CD with the Hanover Band the first ever performances on historic instruments of the complete symphonies by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Weber, as well as 14 symphonies by Mendelssohn and 60 symphonies by Haydn. He has directed over 120 CDs ranging from Monteverdi's sacred vocal music to Holst's Planets (both with ‘period’ instruments!), in addition to conducting more than forty world premières of contemporary music. His CD recordings of the complete Schumann symphonies for BMG/RCA Red Seal (Abbey Road 1993) received unanimous and outstanding critical praise in the worldwide press. Guest appearances in recent years have included Stuttgart and San Francisco Operas, the four German Radio Symphony Orchestras at SWR Stuttgart, WDR Cologne, NDR Hannover, and MDR Leipzig, the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Hallé Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth. In April 2010, he made his début with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in three concerts at the Sydney Opera House.