British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is Principal Guest Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Music Director of Birmingham Opera Company. His debut album features orchestral works by Tchaikovsky including Francesca da Rimini, The Voyevoda and The Tempest, and was released with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on Chandos Records in June 2023.
Recent and forthcoming highlights include performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle and Houston Symphonies, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Oslo Philharmonic, the Hallé, the Atlanta, National, Melbourne and Antwerp Symphony Orchestras, Symphony Orchestra of India, the London Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, the BBC Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, Orchestre National de Lille, and Malmö Symphony Orchestra, alongside many symphonic projects with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Düsseldorfer Symphoniker.
Alpesh enjoys collaborations with distinguished soloists such as Nicola Benedetti, Karen Cargill, Colin Currie, Veronika Eberle, James Ehnes, Pablo Ferrández, Alban Gerhardt, Ilya Gringolts, Benjamin Grosvenor, Hilary Hahn, Sir Stephen Hough, Leila Josefowicz, Pavel Kolesnikov, Johannes Moser, Beatrice Rana, and Arcadi Volodos.
Following his outstanding debut in 2015, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma and performed and recorded much of the great symphonic repertoire, including a complete cycle of Brahms’ symphonies. Alongside the recently critically acclaimed RhineGold, other notable opera titles include Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, West Side Story and a production of Turandot at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia.
A keen advocate of music education for young people, Alpesh is a patron of Awards for Young Musicians, a UK charity supporting talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds on their musical journeys. He has also worked with ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and the symphony orchestras of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Royal Northern College of Music. He was the conductor of the 2015 BBC Ten Pieces film which brought the world of classical music into secondary schools across the UK and received a distinguished BAFTA award.
Born in Birmingham, Alpesh studied ‘cello with Eduardo Vassallo at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the RNCM to pursue the prestigious Master’s Conducting Course. Alpesh studied with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and was mentored by Andris Nelsons and Edward Gardner in his post as Assistant Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2016. Alpesh was named ‘Newcomer of the Year’ in the 2021 International Opera Awards and in 2022 he was delighted to receive the Conductor Award from the Italian National Association of Music Critics for ‘Miglior Direttore’ for concerts across Italy in 2021.
Alpesh was honoured to receive an OBE in Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year’s Honours in January 2022 for Services to the Arts.
