Bertie Baigent came to international attention as the winner of the Grand Prix, Classical Prize, and Symphonic Prize at the International Conducting Competition Rotterdam 2022.
Highlights of the current season include concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille at BOZAR, and with Phion in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Next season he looks forward to debuts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Bruckner Orchester Linz, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, and return visits to Rotterdam, Birmingham, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century.
Previously Bertie conducted orchestras such as the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, New New Japan Philharmonic, Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino, and the Colorado Symphony (where he was Assistant Conductor 2018–2020). He was due to make his debut with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo in 2022 before Covid-19 forced him to withdraw.
Bertie has been Music Director of Waterperry Opera Festival since 2017 – there he has conducted acclaimed performances of all the Mozart/da Ponte operas, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, and this summer will conduct Bizet’s Carmen. Elsewhere, other opera productions include Handel’s Partenope and Semele, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and his own Paradise Lost, performed to sell-out audiences in London in 2022.
As an assistant conductor Bertie has worked with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla on major international tours, Lahav Shani, Sir Mark Elder, and with orchestras including the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, and St Louis Symphony Orchestra. In 2023 he assisted at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, stepping in at short notice to conduct a performance, leading to an immediate re-invitation.
Bertie was born in Oxford and learned the cello and piano before moving towards conducting and composition. He read music at the University of Cambridge and subsequently studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with Sian Edwards.
Photo credit Benjamin Durrant