John Gibbons John Gibbons has conducted most of the major British orchestras including the BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham, Bournemouth, Ulster and, most regularly, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has recorded Skalkottas with the Philharmonia Orchestra and an Arthur Benjamin disc with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He conducted the Romanian premiere of Walton’s First Symphony with the George Enescu Philharmonic as well as concerts with the Macedonian Philharmonic, the Çukurova Symphony (Turkey), the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Malcolm Arnold’s Fourth Symphony in Latvia and Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony in Worms, Germany. John Gibbons has been Principal Conductor of Worthing Symphony Orchestra for sixteen years and, in addition to its regular concert season, they appear at the annual Malcolm Arnold Festival in Northampton where their revelatory performance of Arnold’s Ninth Symphony led many Arnold fans to positively re-evaluate their opinion of this fascinating late work. Well known for his adventurous programming, Gibbons has given many world premieres of neglected works including the Third Orchestral Set by Charles Ives, the Violin Concerto by Robert Still and both the Second Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto by William Alwyn. He recorded Laura Rossi’s film score The Battle of Ancre(Pinewood Studios) and twice conducted her score to live screenings of The Battle of the Somme. John Gibbons studied music at Queens’ College, Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music winning numerous awards as conductor, pianist and accompanist. He assisted John Eliot Gardiner for a number of years, was Leonard Slatkin’s second conductor for a performance of Charles Ives’s Fourth Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and one of four conductors for a BBC Symphony Orchestra performance of George Crumb’s Star Child in the Barbican, London. He has conducted numerous opera productions at Opera Holland Park with particular emphasis on Verdi, Puccini and the verismo composers, including Mascagni’s Iris and Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. He conducted La bohème for the Spier Festival in South Africa, toured Hansel & Gretel around Ireland with Opera Northern Ireland and Opera Theatre Company and conducted a number of productions for English Touring Opera. John Gibbons’s reduced orchestral versions include Walton’s Troilus & Cressida for Opera St Louis, Missouri and Karl Jenkins’s Stabat mater. John Gibbons, a renowned communicator with audiences, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, vice chairman of the British Music Society, and choral director at Clifton Cathedral. His own music has been performed in various abbeys and cathedrals and on the Southbank, London.
