GRAEME JENKINS – conductor

The English conductor Graeme Jenkins is renowned for the breadth of his repertoire and experience in the field of opera. Appointed Music Director of Dallas Opera in 1994, he has also held the positions of Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera (1986 - 1991) and Principal Guest Conductor of Cologne Opera (1997 - 2002).

During his illustrious career Mr Jenkins has conducted 112 different works in 171 opera productions in houses such as Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera North in the UK, and abroad with Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Netherlands Opera, Royal Danish Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, Australian Opera, Canadian Opera and Glimmerglass. His vast repertoire spans from the early baroque through the core Italian and German masterworks to world premieres by Stephen Oliver (Timon of Athens at ENO) and Tobias Picker (Thérèse Raquin recorded by Chandos).

In October 2009 Graeme Jenkins oversaw the transition of Dallas Opera into their new home, the Winspear Opera House designed by Lord Foster as part of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. Highlights from his time in Dallas include becoming the youngest ever British conductor to have conducted The Ring, productions of Wozzeck, Jenufa, Ariodante, Lohengrin, Boris Godunov and Queen of Spades and for this season Tristan und Isolde, Lucia di Lammermoor and The Magic Flute. Future plans in Dallas include Aida and The Aspern Papers by Dominick Argento.

In 2005 Graeme Jenkins made his debut at Vienna State Opera with the celebrated Willy Decker production of Britten's Billy Budd, with Simon Keenlyside in the title role. Subsequently he was invited to take over Jenufa from Seiji Ozawa and conducted further performances of Jenufa in 2009, followed by Der fliegende Holländer in 2010 and Billy Budd and Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci in 2011. In 2013 he will return to Vienna for Peter Grimes and make his Welsh National Opera debut in a new production of Maria Stuarda.

Engagements with other European houses in recent seasons have included The Marriage of Figaro at Theater an der Wien and Hansel und Gretel for his debut with Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. His regular appearances in Scandinavia have featured La Clemenza di Tito, Don Carlos and a new production of The Marriage of Figaro for Royal Danish Opera and La Cenerentola and The Barber of Seville with the Royal Swedish Opera.

Graeme Jenkins is also in demand as a choral and orchestral conductor, and is particularly noted for his interpretations of Mozart and Richard Strauss as well as all the major choral works. In recent seasons he has worked with the Minnesota, Dallas, Houston, Utah, Melbourne and Perth orchestras, and in Europe with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Finnish Radio Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Danish Opera Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, National Orchestra of Porto and Galicia Orchestra. In December 2010 he conducted the New Year performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Vienna Konzerthaus. In June 2012 he returned to his Alma Mater to conduct Berlioz Te Deum in King's College, Cambridge.

Graeme Jenkins studied conducting at the Royal College of Music having previously read music at the University of Cambridge. He worked with Norman Del Mar and Sir David Willcocks, assisted Sir Simon Rattle and Bernard Haitink, and as an Adrian Boult Conducting Scholar directed Britten's Albert Herring and The Turn of the Screw.