Orchestral Performance - Eton College Hall, July 18 1999

Conductor Mark Shanahan

Mark Shanahan was born in Manchester of Irish parentage and studied at Chetham's School of Music. He then studied at London University before joining the post-graduate conducting course at the Royal Academy of Music as the Sir Henry Wood conducting Scholar. He won the NAYO Conducting Competition for European Music Year.

His orchestra work includes broadcasts and concerts with the BBC, National Symphony orchestra of Ireland, RTE Concert Orchestra. He received invitations from the Stavanger Symphony, the Orchestre Filarmonica de Gran Canaria, Netherlands Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The English Northern Philharmonia and the Halle Orchestra.

Mark has conducted for Opera Ireland, English Touring Opera and the Wexford Festival. For Grange Park Opera he has conducted La Traviata and the acclaimed production of I Capuletti e I Montecchi, for Opera North La Traviata and The Queen of Spades and Don Giovanni for Royal Northern College of Music, where he is a visiting Fellow in Conducting. Since 1993 he has been associated with English National Opera as a guest conductor, particularly associated with Italian repertoire, where productions have included La Forza del Destino, the Barber of Seville, Leoncavallo and Puccini La Boheme, La Traviata, Otello and Tosca, described by the Times as 'a musical triumph'.

Concert work has included performances at the Royal Festival, Barbican and Royals Albert Halls, London in wide-ranging repertoire from la Damnation de Faust and Verdi Requiem to Strauss Ein Heldenleben. He is a guest at the Opera and Orchestra Department at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Guest Professor of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, London and Visiting Conducting Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music, Mancester.

Recent engagements have included Ernani for ENO and debuts at the National Reisopera, Holland, and La Fenice, Venice. Future plans include La Rondine at the Royal Northern College of Music, his return to the National Reisopera, Rigoletto at Opera North and L'Elisir d'Amore at Grange Park. This season saw a highly successful debut at Frankfurt Opera with Tosca, where he will return for pproductions of Death in Venice, and in 2007-08 Simon Boccanegra.

Mark has been associated with NSSO since 1997. He is an inspirational musician who demands the respect of students and coaches alike, and it has been a delight to welcome him back to the podium for this course.