BertieBaigent
- Conductor
About Bertie
Music Director: Waterperry Opera Festival
In June 2022 Bertie Baigent won the Grand Prix at the inaugural International Conducting Competition in Rotterdam, along with the Classical and Symphonic prizes.
The 2024/25 season see Bertie debut with the Osaka Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra and Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. The previous season saw debuts with the London Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Tampere Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Bruckner Orchester Linz and Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, as well as returns to the City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic.
Bertie has been Music Director of Waterperry Opera Festival since 2017. There and elsewhere he has conducted productions of Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Dido and Aeneas and Partenope – directing the latter two from the harpsichord. He made his Glyndebourne Festival Opera debut in summer 2023 stepping in to conduct Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, and was immediately reinvited to conduct their annual performance of Handel’s Messiah.
Born in 1995, Bertie studied at the Royal Academy of Music. He was awarded the Orchestra Prize by the New Japan Philharmonic at the Tokyo International Conducting Competition in 2021.
Contact
For availability and general enquiries:
Kate Sweeney
Representation
Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt
Season Highlights
Video
- Playing
Bertie Baigent conducts the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in Beethoven Leonore Overture No. 1
Filmed in June 2022 Credit: International Conducting Competition Rotterdam
Bertie Baigent conducts Rotterdam Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6
Filmed in June 2022 Credit: International Conducting Competition Rotterdam
Bertie Baigent conducts Rotterdam Philharmonic in Joey Roukens’ Night Flight
Filmed in June 2022 Credit: International Conducting Competition Rotterdam
Bertie Baigent conducts the New Japan Philharmonic in Strauss' Tod und Verklärung
Filmed in October 2021 Credit: Tokyo International Conducting Competition
News
Robin Ticciati to lead Glyndebourne’s first Parsifal as Festival announces 2025 season
Bertie Baigent debuts with the Osaka Philharmonic
Bertie Baigent returns to Rotterdam Philharmonic
Bertie Baigent debuts with Detroit Symphony
Bertie Baigent debuts with Tampere Philharmonic
Bertie Baigent debuts at Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Bertie Baigent tours with Phion and debuts at Amsterdam Concertgebouw
Bertie Baigent debuts with CBSO
Bertie Baigent returns to the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
Bertie Baigent wins Rotterdam Conducting Competition
Press
Hermann and Bernstein with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Usher Hall, EdinburghMay 2024The RSNO, sparkily conducted by Bertie Baigent, imbued Bernard Herrmann’s music for Hitchcock’s film Vertigo with nerve-jangling immediacy and shimmering passion, and the biggest adrenaline rush of the evening came from the exhilarating pile-up of rhythms in the Symphonic Dances from Bernstein’s West Side Story.
- Simon Thompson, The Times
- 05 May 2024
The RSNO…ably cued and shaped by nimble, insightful conductor Bertie Baigent. There was a more traditional orchestral set-up after the interval for Baigent’s vivid, strongly characterised Vertigo music by Herrmann, plus Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, played with just the same vigour and enthusiasm. It was a concert of surprises, connections, and revelations. *****
- David Kettle, The Scotsman
- 06 May 2024
Bizet Carmen at Waterperry Opera Festival
OxfordshireAug 2023The small orchestra [was] brilliantly led by Bertie Baigent.
- Sheila Bailey, Ox in a Box
- 20 August 2023
Donizetti L'elisir d'amore at Waterperry Opera Festival
OxfordshireAug 2021The irrepressible Baigent conducted his own rescoring for ten instruments with flair and spirit
- Mark Valenica, Opera Magazine
- 17 August 2021
Donizetti's score sounded as idiomatically fresh, effervescent and dynamic as you could ever expect.
- Jim Pritchard, Seen and Heard International
- 14 August 2021
Dove's Ariel and Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at Waterperry Opera Festival
OxfordshireAug 2020...Bertie Baigent conducted with great flair and energy, and played the harpsichord for the recitatives. He somehow kept the ensemble very tight, even in the swift ensembles, although the physical arrangements often denied him line of sight to his singers. His instrumentalists responded expertly throughout...
- Roy Westbrook, Backtrack
- 14 August 2020
Cantelli Conducting Competition
ItalySep 2020...Baigent whipped up collective forces into a storm in the wildly swirling tarantella and saltarello, adroitly unravelling the yarn of interweaving musical threads while eliciting vigorous percussive interjections...
- Musical America on Cantelli competition
- 17 September 2020
Bertie Baigent debuts at Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Bertie Baigent makes his Glyndebourne Festival Opera debut this evening, stepping in to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. He had been assisting on the Glyndebourne production over the summer, having previously conducted the work at Waterperry Opera Festival in 2021.
Bertie’s Sussex debut marks a year since he won the Grand Prix, Symphony and Classical prizes at the Rotterdam International Conducting Competition in June 2022. Since then he has returned to the Rotterdam Philharmonic to conduct multiple projects, debuted with the City of Birmingham Symphony, and led concerts at BOZAR in Brussels and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Bertie will conduct the London Philharmonic again in November 2023 in a symphonic programme of music by Beethoven and Mozart as part of their Eastbourne residency. Other highlights in 23/24 include debuts with the Detroit Symphony and Tampere Philharmonic, alongside returns to Birmingham, Rotterdam and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
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