BBC - Concert Orchestra - Barry Wordsworth

Barry Wordsworth is Music Director of the Royal Ballet Covent Garden, having also previously held the position from 1990-95. In 2006 he became Conductor Laureate of the BBC Concert Orchestra, having served as its Principal Conductor since 1989. He is also Principal Conductor of the Brighton. From 2005-8 he was Music Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Barry Wordsworth has appeared with many of the UK’s leading orchestras, including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In 1993 he conducted the “Last Night of the Proms” with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Further afield, he has appeared as a guest conductor in recent years with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Sydney Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, and Guangzhou Symphony.

With the BBC Concert Orchestra Barry Wordsworth has made regular appearances at the BBC Proms since his first televised appearance with them at the festival in 1989. He has also toured extensively with the orchestra, including to Japan and to the United States for their 50th Anniversary in 2002.

In addition to his concert career, Mr Wordsworth has enjoyed a long and close relationship both the Royal Ballet in London and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In recent seasons, he has also conducted productions for the New National Theatre Tokyo, the Leipzig Ballet, and the ballet of the Opéra National de Paris where, in 2007 and 2009, he conducted La fille mal gardée.

Barry Wordsworth has a large catalogue of recordings and has made commercial releases for all the UK based companies, including a long association with Argo/Decca International. His recording of the "Last Night of the Proms" with the BBC Concert Orchestra for Phillips Classics has achieved enormous popular success. Most recently he has made two albums of songs with Bryn Terfel and the London Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon, the first of which won a Grammy Award in 2007.

Barry Wordsworth holds honorary doctorates from the University of Brighton and the University of Central England in Birmingham, and in 2006 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College of Music in London.