Alexander Shelley

The twenty-eight year old English conductor Alexander Shelley is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most creative musical talents of his generation.

Unanimously awarded first prize in the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition, Shelley was described in the press as "the most exciting and gifted young conductor to have taken this highly prestigious award. His conducting technique is immaculate, everything crystal clear and a tool to his inborn musicality."

In 2001 Shelley founded the Schumann Camerata in Dusseldorf. He has now conducted this young chamber orchestra in over 80 concerts both in Germany and abroad including a high-profile tour of 11 Russian cities culminating in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire in 2004. With the Camerata this season he has presented the second edition of "440Hz", an innovative series of concerts involving prominent German television and stage personalities, in a major initiative to attract young adults to the concert hall. For more details see the following website: http://www.440hz.info/doc378A.html

Alongside regular concert projects with Deutsche kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Alexander Shelley will, from 2009, become artistic director of their new and ground-breaking Zukunftslabor project. This award-winning series aims to build a lasting relationship between the orchestra and a new generation of concert-goers through grass-roots engagement and involvement with young audiences as well as exciting and unusual programming concepts. Other guest engagements in Germany include Nuremburg Symphony, Hamburg Symphony, MDR Leipzig and Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern.

During the past two seasons Alexander Shelley's UK appearances have featured the BBC Philharmonic at the BBC Proms in 2006 and the inaugural Manchester International Festival in 2007, the Britten Sinfonia at the BBC Proms in 2007, the City of Birmingham Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and London Mozart Players. Future UK engagements include the Philharmonia, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Already well established in Scandinavia, where he has conducted the Swedish Radio Symphony, Helsingborg Symphony, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Danish Radio Sinfonietta and Odense Symphony, he has been re-invited to Tivoli Festival for a fourth appearance in 2009.

Other future highlights include his debut with Rotterdam Philharmonic and a return to Australia with the Australian Youth Orchestra and a tour of the regional orchestras culminating in subscription concerts with Melbourne Symphony. Following his professional opera debut this season with The Merry Widow for Royal Danish Opera, he will conduct a new production of Gounod's Romeo and Juliet in Copenhagen in Spring 2011.

The son of professional musicians, Shelley studied cello with Timothy Hugh and Steven Doane at the Royal College of Music. In 1998 he moved to Germany to complete his cello studies with Professor Johannes Goritzki at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule, Dusseldorf. He took part in the master classes of Mstislav Rostropovich and Janos Starker in Paris, Aldo Parisot in Banff and in the composition master class of George Crumb in Switzerland. In 2003 he played in the World Orchestra for Peace in Moscow and St Petersburg under the baton of Valery Gergiev.

Shelley studied conducting with Professor Thomas Gabrisch and has worked closely with Yan-Pascal Tortelier as assistant conductor with orchestras including the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. His operatic experience has included Donizetti's Viva la Mamma and the new German opera Der Herr Gevatter

To see an audio/visual clip of Alexander Shelley's conducting, please click here.