Biography
Dominic Grier is widely acknowledged as a young conductor of distinction, equally at home in opera, ballet and symphonic work as well as contemporary music and orchestral training. He was a permanent staff conductor at the Royal Opera House from 2008-10, affiliated with the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, and has since served as a regular guest conductor with many of the foremost ballet companies in the UK and Europe including The Royal Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Ballet Vlaanderen, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet and Scottish Ballet. He has been Music Director of the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra since 2014 and was recently a major prizewinner at both the 2024 Bucharest International Conducting Competition and the 2024 Ionel Perlea International Conducting Competition.
In the field of opera, he made a critically acclaimed guest conducting début at the Opéra National de Lyon in March 2010, with the French premiere of Copland’s The Tender Land, and had formerly worked as an Assistant Conductor there, where his repertoire included Siegfried (2007), Porgy and Bess (2008 and 2010) and Death in Venice (2009). He has also assisted on Peter Grimes at the Aldeburgh Festival, and has served as rehearsal conductor to the Britten-Pears Orchestra. More recently, he conducted a rare performance of Malcolm Arnold’s opera The Open Window with the Berkeley Ensemble. He is a regular coach and pianist for the Royal Opera House, working with many of the current and former singers of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme.
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He has served as Music Director of the Ashover Festival Orchestra (2007-9) and of the King's College London Symphony Orchestra (2009-12), Principal Conductor of the London International Orchestra of Academia (2006-8) and Assistant Conductor for British Youth Opera (2007). He is increasingly active as a teacher of conducting, and is on the academic staff at the Royal Academy of Music as Tutor in Undergraduate Conducting and Postgraduate Second Study Conducting. He is also a Founder and Director of the Girton Conducting Course, and Joint Principal Conductor of the Symphony and Classical orchestras at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, and Director of The George Hurst Foundation.
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On the concert platform and in the theatre, he has worked recently with the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra, Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy, the Orchestre de Limoges et du Limousin, the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, the Tokyo City Philharmonic, the Orquestra do Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, the Salomon Orchestra and the Chandos Symphony Orchestra, among others. His performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, France Musique, and throughout the UK as part of the Royal Opera House’s live screenings, as well as having been released on DVD for the Opus Arte label.
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Recent engagements include The Nutcracker for The Royal Ballet, Faust for Ballet Vlaanderen with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, a new version of Eugene Onegin for Maribor Opera and Ballet in Slovenia, David Bintley’s acclaimed production of Cinderella for Birmingham Royal Ballet, and concerts with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and the Purcell School Symphony Orchestra.
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Dominic read music at the University of Cambridge and initially studied conducting with the late George Hurst, then subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music under the tuition of Colin Metters, Sir Colin Davis and Mark Shanahan. He graduated with distinction and was awarded the prestigious DipRAM for outstanding final performances and the Fred Southall Memorial Prize. In 2006, Dominic was a major prizewinner in the Alliance Cornhill Conducting Competition.
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A full Repertoire List is available HERE
Dominic Grier is represented by HarrisonParrott Ltd.
Contact: Henry St Clair — henry.stclair@harrisonparrott.co.uk
He is represented additionally for Symphonic and Operatic engagements by Andrew Strange Music
Contact: Andrew Strange — andrew@andrewstrangmusic.com
For further information, please visit Dominic's pages at the following organisations:
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Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra
Slovene National Opera and Ballet
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