Conductor and Soloists

Guy Woolfenden - Conductor

With more than 150 scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company and an impressive list of credits with major European theatre companies, including the Comédie-Française, Paris and the Burgtheater, Vienna, Guy Woolfenden’s theatre music is highly regarded throughout the world. During his thirty-seven years as Head of Music to the RSC, he collaborated with some of the world’s finest directors in many award-winning productions.

In collaboration with choreographer André Prokovsky, he has arranged the music for four full length ballets, which he has subsequently conducted in productions with The Australian Ballet, The Royal Ballet of Flanders, Hong Kong Ballet Company, Asami Maki Ballet, Tokyo, and Scottish Ballet. Guy conducted the acclaimed Russian première of his Anna Karenina with the Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky theatre in St. Petersburg. Recent performances have taken place in Japan and Turkey, and further productions in 2010 are planned by Ballet West and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in the USA, and in Turkey.

Guy’s compositions for wind orchestra, including Gallimaufry and Illyrian Dances, have established themselves as great favourites and are performed and recorded world-wide. Recent compositions include Reflections: Serenade No 2 for wind dectet and Penumbra for solo flute. Current works include a set of dances for French Horn and Piano, and a new work for orchestral wind based on his popular piece for clarinet choir called Gordian Knots.

Guy is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List 2007 for services to music.

Jeremy Ballard - Leader

Jeremy is the orchestra's long-serving leader. He started playing the violin when he was seven years of age. At fourteen his distinguished musical career started as a band boy in the Royal Marines, playing cornet and violin. In 1957, he won the prestigious Cassels Prize for musician of the year with his performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. During his years as a Royal Marine he served on the Royal Yacht Britannia, playing many solos for HM The Queen and the Royal Family.

In 1962 Jeremy joined the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra whilst still studying with Sascha Lasserson (a pupil of Leopold Auer) in London. He was leader of the second violins for twenty-five years and has travelled the world with many great soloists and conductors. In 1991 he left the CBSO to concentrate on his other interests and is currently a member of the Midland Chamber Players giving regular lunchtime concerts in Birmingham Cathedral. Jeremy also enjoys working with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. The other string to his bow is drawing, for which he has had many fine opportunities at the theatre.

Peter Donohoe - Piano

Peter Donohoe was born in Manchester in 1953.  His early years were spent at Chetham's School of Music, before going on to Leeds University and the Royal Northern College of Music, where he studied with Derek Wyndham. Later he spent a year in Paris studying with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. Since his unprecedented success as joint winner of the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, he has developed a distinguished career in Europe, the USA, the Far East and Australasia.  He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique.  In 2006 he was invited by the Netherlands to be Ambassador for Music in the Middle East and in 2010 received a CBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours.

During the 2009/10 season Peter Donohoe’s engagements include the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, recitals in Moscow and St Petersburg and a chamber music tour with the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet in Ireland.  Last season he performed with the Dresden Staatskapelle with Myung-Whun Chung, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with Gustavo Dudamel and Gurzenich Orchestra with Ludovic Morlot. 

Peter Donohoe has recently played with all the major London Orchestras, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Czech Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Vienna Symphony Orchestras. He was an annual visitor to the BBC Proms for seventeen years and has appeared at many other festivals including six consecutive visits to the Edinburgh Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron in France, and at the Ruhr and Schleswig Holstein Festivals in Germany. In North America, his appearances have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Vancouver and Toronto Symphony Orchestras.  Peter Donohoe has worked with many of the worlds’ greatest conductors including Simon Rattle, Christoph Eschenbach, Neeme Jarvi, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Andrew Davis and Yevgeny Svetlanov.

Peter Donohoe is a keen chamber musician and performs frequently with the pianist Martin Roscoe. They have given performances in London and at the Edinburgh Festival and have recorded discs of Gershwin and Rachmaninov.  Other musical partners have included the Maggini Quartet, with whom he has made recordings of several great British chamber works.

Peter Donohoe has made many fine recordings on EMI Records and has won awards for them including the Grand Prix International du Disque Liszt for Lizst’s Sonata in B minor and the Gramophone Concerto award for the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 2.  His recordings of Messiaen with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble for Chandos Records and Litolff for Hyperion have also received widespread acclaim. In 2001 Naxos released a disc of music by Finzi, the first of a major series of recordings (currently 13 discs) which aims to raise the public's awareness of British piano repertoire through concert performance and recordings.

Peter Donohoe maintains a strong artistic link with the area in which he now lives with his wife Elaine and daughter Jessica. His close association with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra dates back to 1974. He is vice-president of the Birmingham Conservatoire and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Music from the Open University and the Universities of Birmingham, Central England, Warwick, East Anglia and Leicester.