David Atherton

David Atherton is one of the world’s most versatile and experienced symphonic and operatic conductors. He has been especially acclaimed for his pioneering championship and detailed preparation of major new contemporary works and for his dramatic grasp and musical control of the great operatic masterpieces. Atherton is respected internationally as a composer’s conductor. Sir Michael Tippett praises him as “a conductor of genius,” while music critics say an “expert with 20th century scores” with “exceptional skill and beauty” and “an immaculate ear for balance.” The acclaim fills volumes.

Maestro Atherton has been conducting for over 30 years, namely in the U.S., Asia and Europe, including his native England, where he has given over 200 performances at Covent Garden alone.

In 1989, Atherton founded San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival and continues to serve as artistic director and conductor. He was also the Music Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and held titled positions with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

During the 1980s, Atherton pioneered and directed ambitious and imaginative festivals in London featuring performances of the complete works of Ravel, Stravinsky, Webern and Varèse. They have now taken their place as major artistic innovations in the annals of London’s musical life.

He was catapulted to international fame in 1968 at the age of 24 when he was appointed resident conductor at the Royal Opera House by Sir Georg Solti. That same year, he conceived, co-founded and directed a remarkable new artistic group, the London Sinfonietta, which was to become one of the world’s most influential and successful proponents of new music.

Quickly Atherton was recognized as an artist of precocious gifts. At Covent Garden, where he stayed for 12 years and where he returns regularly as a guest, he conducted a wide range of works with some of the greatest singers of recent times. Notable successes were Il Trovatore (Verdi), Don Giovanni (Mozart), Salome (Strauss), The Rake’s Progress (Stravinsky), We Come to the River (Henze), and a double bill of Le Rossignol (Stravinsky) and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Ravel). With the London Sinfonietta he performed and recorded an enormous repertoire ranging from neglected chamber, choral and stage works by composers as diverse as Schubert and Weill, through the complete chamber works of Schoenberg, to choral and operatic music by Tippett and Tavener. In all repertoire he conducted, and especially in difficult new works, he became recognized for his ability to hear intricate details and his commanding technical facility in coordinating the performers.

Equally in demand on the concert platform and in the opera house, David Atherton has frequently conducted the world’s finest orchestras, including the BBC Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Symphony, London Philharmonic, London Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Royal Concertgebouw, and the symphonies of Detroit, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Dallas, and San Francisco.

In opera, David Atherton recently scored great successes at the New York Metropolitan Opera with Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Britten’s Death in Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His performances of Britten’s Peter Grimes and Billy Budd at the English National Opera received particularly strong praise for the drama, cohesion and atmosphere he obtained from the orchestra and chorus. Both productions were recorded for laser disc and home video. In February 2001, he conducted the Glyndebourne Opera production of Janacek’s Makropolous Case at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The New York Times wrote, “…the music swept by with arresting vitality, color and character. Add this British conductor to the list of those who should be considered (or should have been) for the New York Philharmonic.” In April 2002, in its review of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s production of Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Atherton was again praised by The New York Times for drawing “…a fine performance off this delicate and deeply resonant score from the orchestra.”

Recording CDs is a special love for the Maestro, and it shows. His copious discography includes recordings that have won the highest international awards, including an Edison Award, many Grammy nominations and the coveted Grand Prix du Disque. He has also been honoured with the Serge Koussevitsky Critics’ Award and the Prix Caecilia. His recording of Tippett’s opera King Priam won what is considered the world’s most prestigious recording prize, the International Record Critics’Award. Referring to this in his autobiography, the composer said “Atherton is a conductor of genius.” With the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Atherton has recently recorded a series of six CDs of works by Stravinsky and one containing the two symphonies of Kurt Weill.

Atherton’s music making is distinguished by a meticulous attention to detail, balance and structure, whatever the genre, and by a strong rhythmic character. His performances create excitement through their combination of dramatic flair and technical control.

A computer aficionado, Atherton co-founded Global Music Network (GMN.com), a pioneering Internet venture providing web access to performances, artist interviews and classical and jazz news, and once named his Apple Macintosh computer as one of the most important objects in his life. “Nothing can possibly match the joy of music, but by using the other side of the brain for computer work, I’m able to strike an important mental balance,” he said. Conducting also helps him keep a physical balance-a single performance is “akin to…running a six-minute mile.” Eating right, and well, is appreciated-Atherton sees preparing a “well-balanced meal that is beautifully thought out” as similar to a good piece of classical music.

From 1989-2000 David Atherton was the Music Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. On his retirement from this position in 2000 and in recognition of his services to the music of Hong Kong he was made the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate and awarded the OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.