Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra appoints Bertie Baigent as principal assistant conductor

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra have announced the appointment of Bertie Baigent to the role of principal assistant conductor. Throughout his one-year term Baigent will lead a variety of family concerts and educational performances as well as assisting chief conductor Lahav Shani in four concert weeks.

Baigent, who won the Grand Prix at the first International Conducting Competition Rotterdam earlier this month, will begin his new role in August. He is also currently music director of Waterperry Opera Festival and assistant conductor with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra where he has assisted Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla on tour.

Baigent trained as a cellist, pianist, and organist, and studied music at the University of Cambridge. He pursues both conducting and composition and studied both at the Royal Academy of Music where he also won the Ernest Read Prize and the Sir Henry Wood Scholarship. He is currently collaborating with the director and playwright Joseph Winters on an operatic adaption of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which will be premiered in 2022.

Bertie won the Orchestra Prize at the Tokyo International Music Competition for Conducting and debuted with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra earlier this season. Next month he will make his NHK Symphony debut and in the 2021/22 season will also conduct the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century.

You can find out more about the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra here.

You can find out more about Bertie Baigent here.