Richard Laing has established a reputation as one of the most exciting and versatile conductors in Britain today, and has conducted extensively in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. He enjoys the rare distinction of having been invited back to conduct again every orchestra, choir and opera company with whom he has ever performed, without exception. Awarded the sinfonia ViVA Conducting Scholarship in 2001 he has a continuing relationship with ViVA, conducting them in concerts across the UK. Richard is Music Director of The Midland Sinfonia, Nottingham Harmonic Society, Lancashire Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Leicester Bach Choir; Artistic Director of the Leamington Chamber Orchestra; Associate Conductor of the virtuoso young ensemble Sinfonia Cymru, Associate Conductor of the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra, and a frequent guest conductor with Queen’s Park Sinfonia, Hallam Sinfonia, Sinfonia of Birmingham and Chandos Symphony Orchestra. Richard was the founding Music Director of the Birmingham-based opera company Operamus, which has recently appointed him its Patron. He is a conductor and coach on the Orchestral Programme and in the Department of Vocal and Operatic Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire, and Visiting Lecturer in Conducting at the University of Wolverhampton.
Richard’s operatic work has included Albert Herring, Hansel and Gretel and Noye’s Fludde (Operamus), La Traviata and La Bohème (Dartington Festival Opera), The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics (Birmingham Conservatoire), Adrian Cruft’s Dr Syn (Kent Opera) and Handel’s Orlando (Pigotts). He has collaborated with some of the world’s finest instrumentalists and singers, including principal players from the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Dresden Staatskapelle, Amsterdam Baroque, Munich Philharmonic, CBSO, RLPO and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, as well as Brigitte Engerer, Emily Pailthorpe, Anthony Halstead, Leonard Schreiber, Oliver Coates, Robert Hayward, Neil Jenkins, Peter Wedd, John Turner, Alan Hacker, Joanne Lunn and Adrian Bradbury. He has premiered dozens of new works including Paul Patterson’s Phoenix Concerto, and is in great demand as an adjudicator and coach and as a leader of orchestral and choral workshops around the UK. As a chorus master Richard has prepared choirs for the Hallé, the Rinaldo Consort and the National Children’s Orchestra. He has given several performances with Radio 1 DJ Bobby Friction, who has hailed him as “the Iggy Pop of classical music.”
Richard gained his Master's Degree from Birmingham Conservatoire after nine months of study, along with a postgraduate diploma in conducting and the Conservatoire's Postgraduate Prize for the most outstanding contribution to the musical life of the college. Subsequently he was supported by the Foyle Foundation to work intensively on operatic conducting at Dartington with Diego Masson.
Richard studied violin at the University of Illinois with Peter Schaffer and at the RNCM with Richard Ireland, and plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Orchestra of the Swan, Southern Sinfonia, the Welsh Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra da Camera, and as a guest leader for Queen’s Park Sinfonia, Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra, Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia of Birmingham, Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra and Chandos Symphony Orchestra. A keen and active chamber musician, Richard’s chamber music partners include David LePage, Cordula Kempe and Eduardo Vassallo.
In his limited spare time Richard pursues a wide range of academic interests: his undergraduate work in Manchester on John F. Kennedy’s policy in Vietnam won him the Kaiser Award for American History, and he has presented papers on subjects as diverse as Hollywood film, reality TV and the Ring cycle at the International Conferences on Film and Literature at Florida State University and the International Wagner Symposium at the University of Adelaide. Among his proudest achievements are being appointed Vice President of the University of Illinois Triathlon Club and having articles published in the iconic games magazine White Dwarf. Richard is married to the singer and psychologist Karen Wise, a post-doctoral Research Associate at the Faculty of Music and St John’s College, Cambridge; they live in Huntingdon with their 2 year-old daughter Elsa.
Richard’s operatic work has included Albert Herring, Hansel and Gretel and Noye’s Fludde (Operamus), La Traviata and La Bohème (Dartington Festival Opera), The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics (Birmingham Conservatoire), Adrian Cruft’s Dr Syn (Kent Opera) and Handel’s Orlando (Pigotts). He has collaborated with some of the world’s finest instrumentalists and singers, including principal players from the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Dresden Staatskapelle, Amsterdam Baroque, Munich Philharmonic, CBSO, RLPO and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, as well as Brigitte Engerer, Emily Pailthorpe, Anthony Halstead, Leonard Schreiber, Oliver Coates, Robert Hayward, Neil Jenkins, Peter Wedd, John Turner, Alan Hacker, Joanne Lunn and Adrian Bradbury. He has premiered dozens of new works including Paul Patterson’s Phoenix Concerto, and is in great demand as an adjudicator and coach and as a leader of orchestral and choral workshops around the UK. As a chorus master Richard has prepared choirs for the Hallé, the Rinaldo Consort and the National Children’s Orchestra. He has given several performances with Radio 1 DJ Bobby Friction, who has hailed him as “the Iggy Pop of classical music.”
Richard gained his Master's Degree from Birmingham Conservatoire after nine months of study, along with a postgraduate diploma in conducting and the Conservatoire's Postgraduate Prize for the most outstanding contribution to the musical life of the college. Subsequently he was supported by the Foyle Foundation to work intensively on operatic conducting at Dartington with Diego Masson.
Richard studied violin at the University of Illinois with Peter Schaffer and at the RNCM with Richard Ireland, and plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Orchestra of the Swan, Southern Sinfonia, the Welsh Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra da Camera, and as a guest leader for Queen’s Park Sinfonia, Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra, Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia of Birmingham, Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra and Chandos Symphony Orchestra. A keen and active chamber musician, Richard’s chamber music partners include David LePage, Cordula Kempe and Eduardo Vassallo.
In his limited spare time Richard pursues a wide range of academic interests: his undergraduate work in Manchester on John F. Kennedy’s policy in Vietnam won him the Kaiser Award for American History, and he has presented papers on subjects as diverse as Hollywood film, reality TV and the Ring cycle at the International Conferences on Film and Literature at Florida State University and the International Wagner Symposium at the University of Adelaide. Among his proudest achievements are being appointed Vice President of the University of Illinois Triathlon Club and having articles published in the iconic games magazine White Dwarf. Richard is married to the singer and psychologist Karen Wise, a post-doctoral Research Associate at the Faculty of Music and St John’s College, Cambridge; they live in Huntingdon with their 2 year-old daughter Elsa.
