Gregory Rose (musician)

Highlights of his conducting career include conducting the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in the Philharmonic Hall, the Baltic premieres of Nielsen's Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5, the Baltic premiere of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, recording with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, a performance of Rachmaninoff's The Bells in the Royal Festival Hall, London and recording with the National Polish Radio Orchestra in Katowice. In March 2009 a performance of Verdi's Requiem that he conducted with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka attracted an audience of 2,000 people.

Rose has composed works for orchestra, including Tapiola Sunrise, Birthday Ode for Aaron Copland, Cristalflood and Thambapani, as well as for chorus. His Missa Sancta Pauli Apostoli won the liturgical section of the British Composer Awards 2006 [1]. His large-scale music-theatre work, Danse macabre, was premiered in Tallinn, Estonia in October 2011. He is a specialist in the music of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, having completed his Violin Concerto, which he recorded on the Naxos label with Aleksandr Trostiansky and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked closely with composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Steve Reich, Christian Wolff and Stephen Montague, and has appeared in festivals throughout Europe, including two BBC Promenade concerts with Singcircle. He has recorded for many international television and radio stations, and has made recordings for Chandos, Hyperion, Wergo, Continuum and October Music.

As a composer, Rose's works mainly cover the orchestral, choral and chamber repertoires and his works have been published by Boosey & Hawkes, Oxford University Press, Novello and Colla Voce. His orchestral works include Tapiola Sunrise, Birthday Ode for Aaron Copland, Cristalflood and Thambapani. In the choral field he has composed 5 sets of Evening Canticles and 10 masses, including his Missa Sancta Pauli Apostoli, which won the liturgical section of the British Composer Awards 2006. Other masses include Missa Sancti Dunstani and Missa Sancta Beornwaldi. His large-scale music-theatre work, Danse macabre was premiered in Tallinn, Estonia in October 2011 in front of an audience of around 1,000 by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and instrumentalists. His Violin Concerto received its premiere with Peter Sheppard Skærved as soloist at his 70th Birthday concert in London in April 2018, and has been recorded. Future works include an opera called The Dream Seller.

In the classical field he completed the Violin Concerto by Beethoven's contemporary Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the premiere of which he conducted in St John's, Smith Square, London in June 1998, with Jaakko Kusisto and the Jupiter Orchestra. It is published by Artaria Editions, Wellington, New Zealand. Rose conducted the work on a Naxos CD with Alexander Trostiansky and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra in Moscow.

In the 1990s he was Chorus Master at the Wexford International Opera Festival in Ireland. Since then he has conducted many operas, including the British stage premieres of Scott Joplin's Treemonisha, Berthold Goldschmidt's Beatrice Cenci, Vision of Lear by Toshio Hosokawa and "Syllable" by Ed Jessen.

Rose was director of the CAGE AT 70 concerts, the Almeida Festival in 1982, during which time he made a film about Cage with Peter Greenaway for Channel 4, as part of the Four Composers series of films. In 1984 he directed another Almeida Festival series of concerts for Steve Reich's 50th birthday, REICH AT 50 and subsequently conducted several Reich works in collaboration with the composer, including performances of Tehillim. He was also Music Director for two of international designer Hussein Chalayan's London shows.

In the 1980s he formed his own professional chamber orchestra, Jupiter Orchestra, with whom he has appeared at concerts, featuring contemporary composition, in London and the Provinces. In 1999 he was appointed conductor of the pioneering CoMA London Ensemble and he has conducted numerous premieres with the ensemble at concerts in London and at many festivals, including the Spitalfields, Huddersfield and Canterbury's Sounds New Festivals. Recently the ensemble made its debut in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

In 1977, Gregory Rose directed Singcircle in a performance of Stockhausen's Stimmung at the Round House – the first performances of the work outside the original ensemble, the Collegium Vocales of Cologne. Subsequently Singcircle made a recording of that performance on the Hyperion Label. In 1978, they performed at the BBC Promenade concerts in the Royal Albert Hall. In 1985, Singcircle performed this work at the Barbican Centre with Karlheinz Stockhausen himself at the mixing desk. Rose has directed Singcircle in over 50 performances of Stockhausen's Stimmung throughout Europe. A BBC film about the work featuring Singcircle, 'Tuning In', was made in the 1980s.

Gregory Rose (born April 18, 1948) is a conductor, composer, arranger, and music director. He has conducted orchestral, choral and ensemble premieres throughout Europe and the Far East.