Artistic Direction

 British conductor Robert Guy is Principal Conductor to the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Co-Artistic Director to NEW Sinfonia. Forthcoming 2024/25 season highlights include making his West End concert debut at the Andrew Lloyd Webber-owned iconic Theatre Royal Drury Lane in a concert with singer Lucy Thomas. He will conduct the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra at the Philharmonic Hall performing the world première of a brand-new version of Danny Elfman's Wunderkammer. Robert returns to the North Wales International Music Festival with NEW Sinfonia to conduct the world première of a new opera, “Gresford: Up From Underground”.

Recent conducting engagements include being invited to conduct at the Chopin Piano Festival held in Pristina with the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra and Peter Donohoe. Robert has made debuts with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, The Orchestra of Opera North, Huddersfield Choral Society, and has acted as Assistant Conductor to Simon Halsey for the BBC Proms Youth Choir at the BBC Proms. As a guest conductor for Manchester Camerata, he has performed with Tine Thing Helseth, conducted and presented concerts for Orchestra Live, recorded for Sony PlayStation and performed for the Manchester International Festival. 

Robert’s collaborative approach to building trust with musicians has been shaped by his early professional career as a viola player, where he played with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North and alongside the Allegri and Edinburgh String Quartets.  He has been chosen for several prestigious programmes. These include being selected by Kirill Karabits to work with the Britten Pears Orchestra,  Neeme Järvi, Jorma Panula as part of his Panula Academy in Finland, the Berlin Philharmonic ‘Conductors Lab’ in Aix-en-Provence and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. 

Robert is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of NEW Sinfonia: a multi-faceted arts organisation, which boasts a professional chamber orchestra, a community vocal ensemble ‘NEW Voices’, and an education programme ‘NEW Academi’, all based in North Wales. NEW Sinfonia is Orchestra in Residence at the North Wales International Music Festival, where Robert has conducted the National Youth Chamber Choir of Great Britain and the world premières of music by Rebecca Dale and Paul Mealor. He has worked with the Welsh National Opera and regularly leads collaborations with the Royal Northern College of Music. Robert has worked with international soloists including Ye-Eun Choi, Tamsin Waley-Cohen, Federico Colli and Tai Murray. He leads a partnership with United to Assist Refugees UK (UAREUK); a Wrexham based, grassroots humanitarian movement dedicated to helping refugees and those fleeing war and persecution. Robert is the recipient of the inaugural Hilary Tann Award for outstanding achievement in music in Wales 2023, awarded by the Welsh Music Guild. 

State-educated in Wrexham, North Wales, Robert is passionate about making classical music accessible to everyone, utilising the art’s unique potential to inspire, communicate, connect and empower. Robert was introduced to music at the age of three, when he was taught piano by his grandmother, who noticed that he was having difficulty with his hearing. He was later diagnosed by doctors as being 70% deaf. After a series of operations, Robert was completely discharged from hospital, aged sixteen, by which time his hearing had been fully restored. He has since gone on to forge a successful career as a conductor and educator, working at home in the UK and internationally, with orchestras, choirs and young people. 

Robert is frequently sought after as an inspiring and empathetic conductor working with young people. Nationally, he has conducted the National Youth Orchestra of Wales at St David’s Hall and at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. Internationally, he has been invited to conduct for the World Orchestra Festival (China), Association of Music in International Schools (AMIS) in London and Salzburg, and at festivals in Kazakhstan, Hong Kong and South Korea. 

Robert is proud to be Director of Ensembles at the University of Manchester and leads their highly acclaimed Conducting Programme. Highlights include conducting the University of Manchester Chamber Choir in Hong Kong, directing the first performance of Barry Cooper’s  new Bärenreiter edition of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and commissioning a new choral work Light Into My Dark by John Casken. Recent and current  conducting students are rapidly making their way in the profession, with  organisations including the RSNO Chorus, The Hallé, NYCGB Fellowship  Programme and RTÉ  Concert Orchestra. 

@RobGuyConductor #62 world premières #295 student conductors

 July 2024