Ivor Bolton

Ivor Bolton is one of the most respected conductors of Baroque and Classical repertory, although his musical activities extend well beyond this. He has recorded a much-acclaimed series of Bruckner symphonies with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, whose chief conductor he was for 12 years. At the Teatro Real in Madrid, his appearances have included a production of Britten’s Billy Budd that received an award from Opernwelt.

Since 2016 Ivor Bolton has been chief conductor of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, with which he has recorded several CDs of works by Gabriel Fauré. He has been music director at the Teatro Real in Madrid since 2015, and he is also honorary conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, with which ensemble he can regularly be heard at the Salzburg Festival and on tour. In addition, he is chief conductor of the Dresden Festival Orchestra.

He has a long-term working partnership with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where he has conducted several new productions since 1994, most notably of works by Monteverdi, Handel and Mozart. He has received the Bavarian Theatre Prize for his work in Munich.

Ivor Bolton was the music director of English Touring Opera and of Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and was also chief conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He makes regular guest appearances at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Paris Opéra, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the English National Opera and at the opera houses of Bologna, Brussels, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Sydney, Berlin, Hamburg and Genoa.

Further engagements include performances at the BBC Proms, at New York’s Lincoln Center and at the Salzburg Mozartwoche, along with concerts with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.

Highlights of recent seasons include new productions of Die Zauberflöte, Rusalka and Peter Grimes at the Teatro Real and of Così fan tutte in Amsterdam and Giulio Cesare at the Theater an der Wien, concerts with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Japan, guest conducting appearances at the Salzburg Festival and concerts and CD recordings with the Basel Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his activities in Madrid, Basel and Dresden, his projects during the 2022/23 season have included performances with the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra and the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, and returns to the Vienna Musikverein, the Mozartwoche and the Salzburg Festival.