DOUGLAS BOYD BECOMES ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Garsington Opera Bernard Taylor announced, following Anthony Whitworth-Jones’ retirement today, that conductor Douglas Boyd has been appointed as Artistic Director with immediate effect. He will join Nicola Creed who becomes Executive Director having worked for the company since 1999.
Bernard Taylor also announced that Professor Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, has been appointed to the Board and will chair the Garsington Opera Artistic Committee and that Brian Dickie will join the Artistic Committee.
Douglas Boyd is an internationally recognised conductor. He is currently Chief Conductor of Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland, was Music Director of the renowned Manchester Camerata, Principal Guest Conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Partner of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota, Principal Guest Conductor of the City of London Sinfonia. He was a founder member and Principal oboist of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for 21 years. As well as his work for Garsington Opera, his fast developing conducting career in opera at home and abroad has included Glyndebourne Opera on Tour, Zurich Opera and next year Opera North.
Douglas Boyd said: “I am thrilled to become Artistic Director of Garsington Opera. I am passionate about the ethos of the Company and have enjoyed wonderful collaborations in the past few years, conducting Fidelio, Figaro and Don Giovanni. I hope to be able to continue the brilliant and extraordinary work of Anthony Whitworth-Jones and to live up to the vision of Leonard Ingrams – putting fine music at the heart of Garsington Opera. We now have a new home of which we can be very proud and which offers us a great opportunity to expand our season, develop our profile nationally and internationally and to stage opera of the highest possible quality for our dedicated supporters. I believe we have a very exciting future.”
Announcing the appointment Bernard Taylor said: “Douglas Boyd is a perfect choice for Garsington Opera and his work is already well known to our audiences through his conducting of our recent Mozart and Beethoven productions. We had a strong field of candidates from which to choose, but Dougie’s real passion and vision for the future of the company, combined with his strong musical talent won through. I am very pleased to welcome Nicky into the newly created Executive Director role and she, together with Dougie, will manage the company. Dougie will take responsibility for the artistic vision, standards and programming and Nicky will be responsible for the financial performance and will run the operations on a day to day basis. I am also delighted that Jonathan has agreed to join us as a Trustee and, with Brian, to join our already distinguished artistic committee. These four appointments made today are very exciting and secure the musical, artistic and organisational strength of our company for the future.”