Alexander Walker

Alexander Walker’s career has taken him all over the world. He is a regular guest conductor with the legendary Russian State Symphony Orchestra whom he has conducted in concerts at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, and International Performing Arts Centre.  Appearances during the last couple of seasons have included concerts with Prague Philharmonia in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum the Belgrade Philharmonic, Belgrade Strings (broadcasting on National Television with them), the Georges Enescu Philharmonic, Bucharest, North Hungarian Symphony Orchestra,Wrocław State Symphony Orchestra and Russian Philharmonic.   In the UK, he has conducted the City of London Sinfonia and the BBC Philharmonic (with a concert broadcast on Radio 3) and has recently been developing a relationship with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he has recorded and given concerts, and recently conducted the prestigious Elgar Birthday concert in Malvern.  
Other engagements have included Gala Concerts at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester with the Manchester Concert Orchestra and at the Barbican with the London Concert Orchestra for Raymond Gubbay Ltd. Highlights of the last couple of seasons have included a performance of Britten’s War Requiem to mark the 70 years since the invasion of Poland in Lublin, Poland andthe first ever production in Turkey of an Opera by Benjamin Britten in Turkey, conducting The Turn of the Screw for the Istanbul State Opera.  In July, he conducted the first production of Julian Grant’s new operaProphet and Loss for Oundle International Festival.
After completing a music degree at Bristol University and post-graduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Alexander Walker studied with Ilya Musin at St. Petersburg Conservatoire and has since performed throughout the former Soviet Union where many of his concerts have been broadcast on National television and radio.  He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Voronezh State Symphony Orchestra from 1999-2004.  
He is a regular guest conductor with the Mikkeli and Lappeenranta City Orchestras in Finland, and of the Esbjerg Ensemble and the Vestyjsk Sinfonieorkester in Denmark and of many orchestras throughout Poland, the Balkans, Turkey and Romania. In the UK, his engagements have included concerts with  the New Queens Hall Orchestra and the Russian Orchestra of London.
He works regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and has toured with the Royal Ballet to the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres in Russia, throughout the USA including to the Metropolitan Opera and Kennedy Center, as well as to Singapore, Korea, Japan and Turkey.  He has conducted performances of The Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and other work for the Royal Ballet has included Giselle, Manon, Romeo and Juliet and  Swan Lake.   He has also worked for the Finnish National Opera, conducting Kenneth Greve’s new production of Swan Lake, Cinderella for Scottish Ballet, Romeo and Julietfor Northern Ballet Theatre and a gala performance with Anastasia Volochkova at Sadler’s Wells.
His operatic repertoire includes the major operas of Verdi, Puccini and Mozart and Tchaikovsky as well as Tobias and the Angel, Carmen, Rusalka, Tristan und Isolde, Verbum Nobile (Moniuszko), A Life for the Tsar, Ariadne auf Naxos, and  Gli Equivoci nel sembiante,  Le Postillon de Lonjumeau  (Adam) and  Paradise Moscow.  Companies he has worked for have included Opera North, Grange Park Opera, English Touring Opera, Oundle International Festival, Bampton Classical Opera, Chelsea Opera Group, European Chamber Opera,  Opera de Baugé,  London City Opera and the Ukrainian National Opera in Odessa.  For the Cheboksary International Opera Festival, he conducted Tosca with a cast including Nikolai Putilin and Virginia Kerr. 
Proactive in presenting audiences with great music unfamiliar to them, he has organised festivals featuring the music of Nielson in Russia, Karłowicz in Finland and is particularly highly regarded for his interpretations of Middle and East European classical and 19thand 20thcentury repertoire at home.  An enthusiast for contemporary music, he has given first performances of music by Andrei Petrov, Aki-Yli Salomaki, Vladislav Uspenski, and many others.  
He is Music Director of the Norfolk Symphony Orchestra and the Northampton Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights for the coming season include return visits to the Russian Philharmonic,  Georges EnescuPhilharmonic, Bucharest, a revival of The Turn of the Screw for the Istanbul State Opera, The Nutcracker for the Norwegian National Opera and his debut with the Symphony Orchestra New Russia (Music Director: Yuri Bashmet) in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall. A new CD of premiere recordings of the complete violin music by Ignatz Waghalter with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra featuring Irmina Trynkos as soloist is due for release in the Autumn.

 
 
"... Alexander Walker's conducting captured the drama inherent in Grant's score while also emphasising its lyricism." Opera
 
"... The orchestra, led with spirit by the young Alexander Walker, ensured the ensemble tremendous pacing.  He led a cast that clearly gripped the public, who were enthusiastic and clearly excited." Forumopera
 
"Walker's players enchanted with a cavalcade of controlled, astute brass, refined woodwind and alluring low strings, all beautifully articulated." Opera
 
"... very well projected, a compelling performance from this talented conductor." Musical Opinion
 
"Alexander Walker welded the ensemble with tremendous energy and immediacy...Walker has a strong affinity for the Russian style, which came across in the intensity and warmth of this fully engaging performance."Music and Vision
 
"... a subtle musician possessing a feeling for style, concise conducting gestures and unusually expressive movements." Voronezh Courier
 
"... under Alexander Walker's dynamic leadership both chorus and orchestra gave a tremendous performance of this neglected opera [A Life for the Tsar]." Robert Hugill, Music and Vision
 
"Alexander Walker accompanied his singers expertly." Colin Clarke, Seen and Heard
 
"... A conductor with an understanding of structure and a special gift for building musical mood." Lublin Courier
 
"The Artistic Director [St. Petersburg Revelations] was the young British conductor Alexander Walker, who, as Principal Guest Conductor of the Voronezh State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, is also an expert in the performance of Russian music. The festival offered a fascinating and enriching glimpse into music from St. Petersburg, to mark this year's Tercentenary celebrations, and was held in association with the St. Petersburg authority itself.I attended the festival's thrilling final concert at the Conway Hall, Holburn on 15th September, given by the Russian Chamber Orchestra of London, a group formed in 1998, specialising in Russian music whose recent appearances included a premiere by Galina Ustvolskaya and Mukhmedov's Russian Ballet at the Coliseum. Here they were conducted stylishly by Alexander Walker in a stimulating programme that featured premieres by Vladimir Uspensky (born 1937), Andrei Petrov (born 1930) and Yuri Falik (born 1936), leading St. Petersburg composers of the senior generation, framed by two Russian "classics": Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky.A Russian flavour was immediately set with Prokofiev's Vision Fugitives, impressionistic piano pieces in a most effective string orchestra version by Rudolf Barshai. A daring work to begin with, Alexander Walker soon elicited a cohesive ensemble to convey the widely varied moods of these epigrammatic miniatures: from the elusive poetic to the boisterous, from piquant neo-classicism to virulently aggressive, the serene and visionary.The Russian Chamber Orchestra of London's vibrant sonority was displayed to great effect in the Fanfare and Requiem by Yuri Falik, a composer with a distinctive, often ravishing approach to new tonality. Especially effective was the idiomatic use of the medium, for instance the rhetorical power of allowing simple ostinato figures to continue beyond the stretches of melody they accompany, a device Tchaikovsky also uses eloquently in his Serenade that concluded the programme.In this popular masterpiece, the Russian Chamber Orchestra of London came fully into their own, with Alexander Walker welding the ensemble with tremendous energy and immediacy. A former student of Ilya Musin in St. Petersburg, Walker has a strong affinity for the Russian style, which came across in the intensity and warmth of this fully-engaging performance. The orchestra responded with rich sonorities, especially Tchaikovsky' many chordal themes, and after the balance of sumptuous melodic writing and delicacy in the Waltz, the touching Elegie was imbued with just the right amount of nostalgia, the finale bristling with zest. It formed a stirring conclusion to this rewarding and enlightening programme, an initiative for which much credit is due to the St. Petersburg Revelations festival organisers." Malcolm Miller, Music and Vision.
 
"A small chamber ensemble of virtuoso musicians drawn from the National Chamber Orchestra was conducted by Alexander Walker in masterful and precise fashion... Alexander Walker conducted with authority and verve."Roger Jones, Gloucestershire Echo.
 
"Performances of both works [by Finzi and Pergolesi] were first rate, showing an understanding of style and a fine blend and balance of voices."George Allan, The Hounslow Chronicle.
 
"The 35th Symphony written by the mature Mozart was dedicated to his friend Zigmund Haffner on the occasion of being awarded his title. The combination of joie de vivre, profundity and the heart-felt qualities of Mozart's music, underpinned by a refined approach to structure were deftly conveyed under the leadership of Maestro Walker.It was the first performance in Voronezh of Soirees Musicales, by Benjamin Britten. These charming miniatures, exploring with originality, the colours of the orchestra were performed with panache and with understanding of the style of the music.The second concert in Voronezh was entitled "Pushkin in Music". Maestro Walker proved himself to be a sympathetic accompanist in this concert. The complex accompaniment to Lauri's Songa from Dargomidjsky's Opera "The Stone Guest" (soloist of the Philharmonic, Galina Raznichenko) was performed splendidly.A storm of applause greeted the performance of "The Three Wonders" from "The Fairy Tale of the Czar Sultan", where the orchestra subtly conveyed the contrasts between the fantastical images.In Alexander Walker, we saw a subtle musician, possessing a feeling of style, concise conducting gestures and unususally expressive movements. It will be marvellous if this acquaintance continues."Elena Semenova, Voronezh Courier.
 
"He is comfortable in a wide range of styles..He has a good rapport with the musicians of the orchestra, and is able to produce the results he requires from them. He has a deep understanding of music, and his conducting is energetic and committed." Leonid Korchmar, Director of Opera, Kirov Opera.
 
"It is without doubt that this young conductor will show himself to be a superlative director of the orchestra possessing outstanding musical and conducting qualities." Professor Ilya Musin, St. Petersburg State Conservatory.