Music at Oxford’s Friday Sheldonian special

This Friday, 28th April, book in to enjoy a world premiere from Gregory Rose in celebration of his 75th birthday with Jupiter Orchestra at the Sheldonian Theatre

From one of the oldest, and most loved, oboe concertos to one of the newest, this highlight offers a world premiere from Gregory Rose in celebration of his 75th birthday.

Both will be performed by renowned oboist George Caird, a long-standing friend of Gregory Rose, the evening will also feature two works for string orchestra. Janáček’s Idyll Suite, previously recorded for Chandos by the Jupiter Orchestra, will be performed alongside Tchaikovsky’s heartfelt Serenade for Strings.

Gregory Rose celebrated his 75th birthday on 18th April. Brought up in Bampton, he was a violin pupil of the legendary Frances Kitching and studied Music at Magdalen College Oxford in the 1960s, as an academical clerk under his father, Bernard Rose. He returned to live in Oxford several years ago.

As a conductor he is particularly noted for his performances of the romantic and contemporary repertoires, having conducted over a thousand premieres of orchestral, choral and ensemble works throughout Europe and the Far East. Orchestras include the Finnish Radio Symphony, St Petersburg, London Philharmonic, Polish National Radio Symphony and the Royal Scottish National orchestras, and the National Symphony Orchestras of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Eire, the BBC Concert Orchestra, his own Jupiter Orchestra & Singers, and the amplified vocal ensemble Singcircle. Choirs include the Groupe Vocal de France, the Nederland Kamerkoor, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the Latvian Radio Choir and the BBC Singers.

Gregory has worked closely with composers such as Stockhausen, Cage, Steve Reich, Lachenmann and Birtwistle. For the Almeida Festival, he directed Cage at 70 in 1982, and Reich at 50 in 1986. He has directed more than 50 performances of Stockhausen’s Stimmung, including performing with the composer himself, as well as making an award-winning CD of the work in 1980, shortly after directing a performance at the BBC Promenade concerts.  He collaborated on the premiere recording of John Cage’s Song Books on the Sub Rosa label and has conducted orchestral arrangements for Linda Ronstadt, Diana Ross, and Madness. 

In the field of opera and music theatre he has conducted performances of operas by Bizet, Scott Joplin, Igor Stravinsky, Samuel Barber, Virgil Thomson, Berthold Goldschmidt, Nino Rota, Poulenc, Gian Carlo Menotti, Malcolm Williamson, Toshio Hosokawa and Edward Jessen, and music-theatre works by Prokofiev, Luciano Berio, Peter Maxwell Davies, Jonathan Harvey and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He has participated in festivals throughout Europe, including two BBC Proms concerts with Singcircle. He has recorded for many international television and radio stations, and has made highly acclaimed recordings for Chandos, Hyperion, Wergo, Continuum, October Music, Toccata Classics, Dacapo and Naxos. He has been a staff conductor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance since 1996. 

Book your tickets at Albinoni, Rose and Friends | Sheldonian Theatre (ox.ac.uk).

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