Photo: Michael Lutch

Grant Llewellyn

Music Director of the North Carolina Symphony and Principal Conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society, Grant Llewellyn is renowned for his exceptional charisma, energy and easy authority in music of all styles and periods. Born in Tenby, South Wales, Llewellyn won a Conducting Fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts in 1985 where he worked with Bernstein, Ozawa, Masur and Previn. As Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the early 1990s he conducted concerts at the Tanglewood Festival, the Boston Subscription Series and in the “Boston Pops”.

To date, Grant Llewellyn’s career has led him to hold positions with three European orchestras: Principal Conductor of the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, Principal Guest Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and Associate Guest Conductor with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Notable recent European guest engagements have included the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart and the Helsinki Philharmonic. He retains close links with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with whom he continues to undertake numerous television, radio and recording projects.

Grant Llewellyn has conducted many orchestras in North America, most notably the symphonies of Boston, Houston, Montreal, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Calgary and Toronto. This season he makes his debut with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. As Music Director of the Handel and Haydn Society, America’s leading period orchestra, Llewellyn gained a reputation as a formidable interpreter of music of the Baroque and classical periods. Among the highlights of his work with the Society have been staged performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in collaboration with director Chen Shi-Zheng, and Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Llewellyn’s first complete season as new Music Director of the North Carolina Symphony included a series of concerts called “Crossing the Atlantic” featuring composers and works from the United States and the UK.

An equally accomplished opera conductor, Grant Llewellyn has appeared at the opera companies of English National Opera (The Magic Flute) and the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, where his repertoire has ranged from Alexander Goehr’s Arianna to The Magic Flute and Handel Radamisto. In 2001 he embarked on a collaboration with acclaimed Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng in a production of Dido and Aeneas at Spoleto Festival U.S.A. This was followed by a staged version of Monteverdi’s Vespers with the Handel and Haydn Society. Other projects have included numerous opera galas as well as concert performances of operas by Britten, Rossini, Verdi and Puccini. In 2003 Llewellyn made his debut with Opera North in a new production of Massenet’s Manon. In June 2005 Llewellyn conducted at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, one of the world’s most prestigious singing competitions.

Grant Llewellyn lives in Cardiff with his wife Charlotte and their four children.

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Email: Emily Good