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Martyn Brabbins

Conductor
Chief Conductor, Malmö Symphony Orchestra (from September 2025)
Music Director, English National Opera 2016-2023
Artistic Advisor, Huddersfield Choral Society
Prince Consort Professor of Conducting, Royal College of Music
Visiting Professor of Conducting, Royal Scottish Conservatoire

  • Martyn Brabbins was recently appointed Chief Conductor of the Malmö Symphony, starting in the 2025/26 season. He was Music Director of the English National Opera 2016-2023.


    He guests with top international orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony, DSO Berlin and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, as well as the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony and most of the other leading UK orchestras, and also has a close relationship with the Symphony Orchestra of India (Mumbai). He is a popular figure at the BBC Proms, who in 2019 commissioned 14 living composers to write a birthday tribute to him, released in 2024 on the BIS label. Known for his advocacy of British composers, he has conducted hundreds of world premieres across the globe. He has recorded nearly 150 CDs to date, including prize-winning discs of operas by Korngold, Birtwistle and Harvey. In 2023 he received the RPS Conductor Award for his "colossal" contribution to UK musical life.

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  • He was Associate Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra 1994-2005, Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic 2009-2015, Chief Conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic 2012-2016, and Artistic Director of the Cheltenham International Festival of Music 2005-2007. He is Prince Consort Professor of Conducting at the Royal College of Music, Visiting Professor at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire and Artistic Advisor to the Huddersfield Choral Society.


    Brabbins has had a busy opera career since his early days at the Kirov and more recently at La Scala, the Bayerische Staatsoper, and regularly in Lyon, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Antwerp. He opened English National Opera’s 23/24 season with David Alden’s production of Peter Grimes in what turned out to be his swansong, as well as a musical highpoint of his seven year tenure. He also led a rare performance of Tippett’s opera New Year with the BBC Scottish Symphony, recording it for release on NMC. In 24/25 he conducts The Makropoulos Case for Scottish Opera and Mazeppa for Grange Park Opera.


    Amongst his symphonic highlights of 23/24: two BBC Proms concerts, including stepping in for the late Sir Andrew Davies, and two successive weeks at the Barbican in repertoire ranging from Mussorgsky to Nono, all with the BBC Symphony. Engagements abroad have included Stravinsky with the Radio Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Elgar with Lahti Sinfonia. In 24/25 he conducts the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony at Suntory Hall, the BBC Symphony at the Barbican (Boulez), makes his debut with the Danish National Symphony, and returns to the Antwerp Symphony, BBC Scottish and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.


    His discography ranges from Romantic to contemporary repertoire, with over 60 recordings for Hyperion Records alone, notably of Elgar, Walton and Tippett. He has received three Gramophone Awards, one for Birtwistle’s Mask of Orpheus with the BBC Symphony (NMC) and another in 2021 for Pickard chamber works with the Nash Ensemble (BIS) and (in 2023) shared the Concerto Award with viola soloist Tim Ridout for Elgar and Bloch with the BBC Symphony (Harmonia Mundi). He also won the Cannes Opera Award for Korngold's Die Kathrin with the BBC Concert Orchestra (CPO), and the Grand Prix du Disque for Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream.


    Brabbins studied composition in London and conducting with Ilya Musin in Leningrad, subsequently winning first prize at the 1988 Leeds Conductors' Competition which launched his international career.

    As of 12 August 2024 – 541 words. Not to be altered without permission.

Performances

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Sample programmes

Easter:
MacMillan Exsultet (version for symphonic brass)
Gubaidulina Seven Words upon the Cross
De Sabata Gethsemani (comtemplative poem)
Wagner Parsifal: Extracts 


Slavic:
Dvorák The Noonday Witch
Lutoslawski Cello Concerto
Interval
Pärt Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Bartók Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta 


World War I:
Gurney War Elegy / Ravel Mother Goose Suite
Beamish Violin Concerto
Interval
Walton Symphony No.1 / Vaughan Williams Symphony No.3 'Pastoral'


Songs and Dances:
Mussorgsky Songs and Dances of Death (Pesni i plyaski smerti) (mezzo soprano & orchestra)
Fujikura Song cycle in a new orchestral version
Interval
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel) 


“Firsts” – including a first performance by Kalevi Aho:
Beethoven Symphony no.1
Aho Trombone Concerto
Interval
Shostakovich Symphony no.1


Sibelius/Shostakovich:
Sibelius En Saga
A concerto
Shostakovich Symphony no.5 


Heroics:
Elgar Falstaff
Rachmaninov The Miserly Knight 


Dance of the Earth:
Birtwistle Earth Dances
Stravinsky Sacre de Printemps


Heavenly Bodies:
Harvey Body Mandela / Ades Asyla / Anderson Stations of the Sun
Holst The Planets  


Bartok/Hindemith
Bartok Miraculous Mandarin suite 
Bartok Piano Concerto No.1 
Interval
Hindemith Trauermusik (Viola solo)
Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphosis, on theme by Weber 

Opera repertoire

Bartok 
Blaubart


Bell
Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel


Beethoven 
Fidelio


Berg
Wozzeck


Birtwistle 
The Mask of Orpheus
The Second Mrs Kong


Bloch 
Macbeth


Britten 
All


Bryars 
Medea


Dallapiccola
Il Prigioniero
Volo di Notte


Debussy 
Pelleas


Henze 
Der Prinz von Homburg


Janáček 
All


Knaifl 
Alice in Wonderland


Korngold 
Die Kathrin


Mozart
Magic Flute
Don Giovanni
Le nozze di Figaro
Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail 


Mussorgsky
Boris Godounov
Khovanschina


Poulenc
Voix humaine
Les mamelles de Tiresias


Prokofiev
Gambler
Fiery Angel
Love of 3 Oranges
War & Peace


Puccini
All


Rachmaninov
Aleko
Francesca da Rimini
The Miserly Knight


Raskatov
A Dog’s Heart


Ravel
L’enfant et les sortileges


Sawyer
From Morning to Midnight


Schreker
Der Ferne Klang


Smetana
Bartered Bride


Strauss
All


Stravinsky
Marva
Nightingale
Rake’s Progress


Tchaikovsky
Queen of Spades
Eugene Onegin
Mazzeppa
Cherevichki


Tippett
Child of our Time (staged oratorio)


Vaughan-Williams
Pilgrims Progress


Verdi
Othello
Falstaff


Wagner
The Flying Dutchman
Tannhäuser
Ring Cycle


Walton
Troilus and Cressida


Zemlinsky
Der Zwerg 


Also possible: Borodin, Dvořák, Glinka, Martinu, Korngold, Rimsky-Korsakoff

"Through it all though, the ENO orchestra under music director Martyn Brabbins are on cut-throat form, the score’s fleeting moments of delicacy and splendour proving precious amid the roiling terror."

The Guardian, September 2023

“Brabbins, who truly understands the language of this music, judges the tempos and balance of the ensemble with instinctive sensitivity; his handling of the chorus is outstanding, and he genuinely brings out the luminosity of Stanford’s lustrous orchestration, which is splendidly executed by the CBSO”

Gramophone, May 2023

“Janacek’s impact relies on the precision and clarity of the orchestral sounds, and Martyn Brabbins secured transparently expressive playing from the ENO orchestra, which powers the show”

The Telegraph, February 2022

Downloads

Intermusica represents Martyn Brabbins worldwide

Susie McLeod
Director, Artist Management
+44 20 7608 9920
smcleod@intermusica.com






Laura Mayo
Assistant Artist Manager
+44 20 7608 9906
lmayo@intermusica.com

All artists

Chansonnier

HK Gruber

Counter-tenor

Tim Mead

Harpsichord

Richard Egarr

Piano accompanist

Roger Vignoles

Saxophone

Jess Gillam

Contralto

Avery Amereau