Adrian Leaper - Conductor
Adrian Leaper has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of Spain's
RTVE Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in Madrid for the last extremely successful
nine years. He was previously Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Filharmónia
de Gran Canaria for eight years until taking up his Madrid position in 2001.
He first came to prominence when he was appointed Assistant Conductor of
the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester for five years where he was eventually
conducting nearly 30 concerts each season. He returned to the Warsaw Philharmonic
Orchestra this season and made his debut with the Orquestra Nacional do
Porto as well as conducting in Scandinavia alongside his work in Madrid.
Future engagements include him conducting in Japan and India as well as
Spain.
Adrian Leaper has conducted all four major London orchestras, the Symphony
Orchestras of Moscow, Vienna and Prague Symphony Orchestras, several Radio
Symphony Orchestras in countries including the United Kingdom, Germany,
Poland, Czech Republic, Eire and Norway as well as others ranging from L'Orcheste
de la Suisse Romande in Switzerland to Sweden's Malmö Symphony Orchestra,
the Mozarteum Orchester in Salzburg, Poland's National Philharmonic Orchestra,
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Malaysian Philharmonic orchestras in addition
to working throughout Spain with other orchestras there such as the Orquesta
Ciudad de Sevilla, Orquesta Ciudad de Málaga and Real Orquesta de
Galicia whilst retaining close contact with the Orquesta Filharmónia
de Gran Canaria.
Adrian Leaper's repertoire has grown over the years to extend well beyond
normal core classical pieces to also encompass Sibelius, Janácek,
Elgar, Dvorák and Mahler plus an empathy with music of Spanish composers.
Beyond these he has had considerable success with pieces like Stravinsky's
Rite of Spring, Bartók Miraculous Mandarin, Martinu's St. Francisco
Frescoes, Shostakovitch' Symphony No. 1 and Janacek's Jenufa with Eve Urbanova
and Nancy Gustaveson. He has also worked several times with top level artists
such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Felicity Lott, Garrick Ohlssen, Rudolf Buchbinder,
Mischa Maisky, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Alicia de Larrocha, Pierre Amoyal,
Ernst Kovacic, Cho-Liang Lin and Anne-Sofie von Otter whilst working with
them. This extraordinary breadth is also reflected in an enormous discography
of nearly 80 CD recordings in his career to date nearly all of which have
been recorded for Arte Nova, ASV, Naxos/Marco Polo and La Mota de Polvo
which ranges from standard classical repertory - including series of Mahler,
Sibelius, Nielsen and Dvorak symphonies - through core Russian and central
European works, staples of the English concert platform alongside British
light music classics and, for ASV, Spanish twentieth century music amongst
which are premier recordings of works by Granados, Ernesto Halffter, Rodo,
Obradores and Conrado del Campo.
July 2010