Grammy- and Juno Award-winning conductor-composer Bramwell Tovey is the music director designate of the Sarasota Orchestra in Florida. He will continue in his roles as principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, principal conductor and artistic director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec.
Following an 18-year tenure as music director of the Vancouver Symphony, which concluded in summer 2018, Tovey is the orchestra’s music director emeritus. Under his leadership, the VSO toured China, Korea, Canada and the United States. His VSO innovations included the establishment of the VSO School of Music, the VSO’s annual festival of contemporary music and the VSO Orchestral Institute at Whistler, a comprehensive summer orchestral training program for young musicians in the scenic mountain resort of Whistler, British Columbia.
In summer 2021, Tovey conducted the New York Philharmonic at Bravo Vail, Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and led the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Proms before he embarked on a full schedule, including a special concert in Sarasota to mark the beginning of his tenure, followed by guest appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Helsingborg Symphony in Sweden.
In 2003, Bramwell Tovey won the Juno Award for best classical composition for his choral and brass work Requiem for a Charred Skull. His song cycle, Ancestral Voices, which addresses the issue of reconciliation, was written for acclaimed mezzo-soprano Marion Newman and premiered in June 2017. His trumpet concerto, Songs of the Paradise Saloon, was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony for principal trumpet Andrew McCandless and performed in 2014 by Alison Balsom with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. A recording of his opera, The Inventor, commissioned by Calgary Opera, features the original cast, members of the University of British Columbia Opera and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
Tovey was the recipient of the 2015 Oskar Morawetz Prize for Excellence in Music Performance. He was previously music director of Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, where he led the world premiere of Penderecki’s Eighth Symphony on the opening of the principality’s new concert hall, the Philharmonie. He won the Prix d’Or of the Academie Lyrique Française for his recording of Jean Cras’ 1922 opera Polyphème with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and toured with the orchestra to China, Korea, the United States and throughout Europe.
In 2013, he was appointed an honorary Officer of the Order of Canada for his services to music.
March 2022
