Garry Walker has been, since Season 2017/18, Chefdirigent of the Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz, on an initial 5 year contract. In June 2019, it was announced he would become Opera North’s new Music Director, serving as Music Director Designate in Season 19/20 before taking on the rôle in Season 20/21. He has just successfully conducted his first opera as Music Director, leading Bizet’s Carmen.

Winner of the 1999 Leeds Conductor’s Competition, Scottish born Garry Walker studied cello (with Ralph Kirshbaum) and conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music.

In October 1999, at very short notice, he replaced an indisposed Daniele Gatti in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s opening concert of their Barbican season. Thus began an ongoing relationship leading to his appointment as Permanent Guest Conductor, a post he has now relinquished.

Garry Walker was Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (2003–2007), Principal Conductor of Paragon Ensemble and now enjoys a close association with Red Note Ensemble Scotland’s première contemporary music ensemble.

In the UK Garry Walker has worked with all the BBC orchestras, the Hallé, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, London Sinfonietta, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.  Chamber orchestras have included the Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra and Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields. With SCO he has appeared at the St Magnus Festival, with the ECO in Lisbon and the City of London Festival and with ASMF at the Barbican’s Mostly Mozart Festival.  He regularly appears at the Edinburgh International Festival and in 2003 conducted a notable performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’ with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Outside the UK he has appeared with the Nieuw Ensemble, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Collegium Musicum, Denmark, Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin.  Further afield he has had re-invitations to both the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia and made his US debut with the Utah Symphony Orchestra.

Most recently he has conducted the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in California, the Dortmund Philharmoniker, the BBC Symphony, National Orchestra of Wales and Scottish Symphony Orchestras and Musikkollegium Winterthur, to which he was immediately re-invited.

An experienced opera conductor, Garry Walker conducted a new production of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen for Garsington Opera in the summer of 2014  He has also conducted both Britten’s Curlew River and the world première of Stuart Macrae’s opera The Assassin Tree at the Edinburgh International Festival.  He also conducted the Macrae at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio, David McVicar’s much acclaimed production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart for English National Opera, Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage for Scottish Opera, Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito at the Royal Northern College of Music and Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine at the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.  Outside the UK he has conducted Curlew River for Lyon Opera and a new production by Calixto Bieito of Hosakawa’s Hanjo at the Ruhr Triennale. He conducts Billy Budd at Opera North in autumn 2017.

Future plans include appearances with the Auckland Philharmonia, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra, Teatro Dell'Opera Di Roma, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Philharmonie Zuidnederland, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra della Toscana and London Philharmonic,and London Sinfonietta.

Amongst the many international soloists with whom Garry Walker has collaborated are Maxim Vengerov, Janine Jansen, Truls Mørk, Mischa Maisky, James Ehnes, David Geringas and Branford Marsalis.

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