Ivor Bolton is one of the most respected conductors of Baroque and Classical repertory, although his musical activities extend well beyond this. He has recorded a much-acclaimed series of Bruckner symphonies with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, whose chief conductor he was for 12 years. At the Teatro Real in Madrid, where he has been music director since 2015, his appearances have included a production of Britten’s Billy Budd that received an award from Opernwelt. Since 2016 Ivor Bolton has been chief conductor of the Basel Symphony Orchestra. He is also honorary conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, with which ensemble he can regularly be heard at the Salzburg Festival and on tour. In addition, he is chief conductor of the Dresden Festival Orchestra.
He has a long-term working partnership with the Bavarian State Opera, where he has conducted several new productions since 1994, most notably of works by Monteverdi, Handel and Mozart. He has received the Bavarian Theatre Prize for his work in Munich. Ivor Bolton was the music director of English Touring Opera and of Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and was also chief conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He makes regular guest appearances at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Paris Opéra, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the English National Opera and at the opera houses of Bologna, Brussels, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Sydney, Berlin, Hamburg and Genoa. He has appeared at the BBC Proms and at New York’s Lincoln Center, and given concerts with
the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.
Highlights of 2023/24 include Médée and Orlando at the Teatro Real and Die Entführung aus dem Serail and La Cenerentola at the Bavarian State Opera, along with his activities in Basel and Dresden. He also gives concerts with the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and at the Teatro La Fenice, and returns to the Salzburg Mozartwoche and the Salzburg Festival.
