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Conductors
There are three conductors for this Competition - Grant Llewellyn and Ralf Weikert for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales' preliminary concerts and Carlo Rizzi for those of the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera.
Singers reaching the Final will be accompanied by the same conductor as in their round, so potentially all three could take part in the Final. |
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Grant Llewellyn
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. He was Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Grant Llewellyn is Music Director of the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and the Handel & Haydn Society.
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. Grant Llewellyn has conducted many orchestras in Europe and North America, and in the UK he has guested with the Hallé, CBSO and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to name but a few. He retains close links with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In 2002 Llewellyn's conducting career became the subject of a BBC Wales TV documentary. In September 2004 he was invited by the BBC Proms to conduct the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Royal Albert Hall, with a programme including the world premiere of Joby Talbot's Sneaker Waves and Shostakovich's Symphony No 9.
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 St Louis (Arianna, Radamisto, The Magic Flute). In 2003 Llewellyn made his debut with Opera North in a new production of Massenet's Manon.
Grant Llewellyn lives in Cardiff with his wife Charlotte and their four children. He conducts Concert 2.
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Carlo Rizzi
Music Director of Welsh National Opera, he is a regular conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Opéra de Bastille, Zurich Opera and at La Scala in his home town of Milan.
Since 1985 when he won the first Toscanini Competition, Carlo Rizzi has appeared with many orchestras in the UK, Europe, North America, the far East and Australia including all the major London orchestras, the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, Israel Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic and the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome.
He has recorded Respighi Tone Poems and the complete L'Arlesienne music by Bizet for Teldec, as well as a number of complete operas including La traviata, Rigoletto, Faust, La Cenerentola and Un ballo in maschera.
He was Musical Director of WNO from 1992 to 2001, when he conducted extremely wide-ranging repertoire with enormous success including, besides many Italian operas, Der Rosenkavalier, Peter Grimes, Tristan und Isolde and Katya Kabanova. His future opera plans include a new production of Mefistofele with the Netherlands Opera and further performances at the Metropolitan Opera.
He will also be conducting orchestras including Tokyo's Yomiuri, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. As WNO's Music Director he conducted La traviata in WNO's opening season at the Wales Millennium Centre and he will also conduct a new production of Verdi's Don Carlos in autumn 2005.
2005 is Carlo Rizzi's sixth season with the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. He conducts Concert 1, Concert 3 and Concert 5.
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Ralf Weikert
Born in Austria, Ralf Weikert received his first musical training at the Bruckner-Konservatorium in Linz. He completed his studies at the Vienna Music Academy under the famous Professor Hans Swarowsky.
In 1965 Weikert won the First Prize at the Nicolai Malko Competition in Copenhagen. One year later he was granted the Mozart Interpretation Prize by the Austrian Minister of Culture. In 1975 the Karl Böhm Award was presented to him from the great conductor himself.
Until 1977 Maestro Weikert was Music Director of the Bonn Opera. He was then appointed executive General Music Director at the Frankfurt opera and in 1981 he became Principal Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra and the Landestheater in Salzburg.
In 1974 Ralf Weikert made his debut at the Vienna State Opera and in 1975 at the Hamburg State Opera. His first appearance at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1979 was followed by performances at the Bavarian State Opera Munich from 1981, at the Metropolitan Opera New York from 1987 and at the San Francisco Opera from 1997.
Since 1971 Maestro Weikert has been a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, the Festival of Aix-en-Provence, the Bregenz Festival and since 1987 the Arena di Verona.
From 1983 until 1992 Ralf Weikert was Music Director of the Zurich Opera. Since then he has been working as a freelance conductor and he regularly appears at the State Operas of Vienna, Munich, Hamburg and Dresden as well as at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki.
He conducts Concert 4.
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