Musical Director

David Drummond was appointed Musical Director of the London Oriana Choir
in 1996.

He has conducted opera for English National Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Scottish Opera and for Kharkov Opera.

Orchestras conducted include the London Mozart Players, Kharkov Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra, with whom he recorded the BBC’s Olympics 2000 music and in November 2007, a world première recording with London Oriana of Armstrong Gibbs’ Odysseus.

He has been Chorus Master for both Scottish Opera and ENO, has worked with choirs throughout Britain and, from 1991 to 2001, was Director of Music & Opera at University College, London, where he conducted the world première of Cesar Franck’s Hulda and three further British premières including Sallinen’s Kullervo.

He is on the coaching staff at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music and has been an adjudicator for the BBC Radio 3’s Choir of the Year Competition. He has been a popular presenter of children’s concerts both in this country with the LMP, and in Sweden, and has also staged several opera productions with mentally handicapped adults.

As Musical Director of the London Oriana Choir he has worked with the English Baroque Orchestra, Fine Arts Brass and Canzona. He was responsible for the choir’s Editor’s Choice recording of Walford Davies’ Everyman and some of his choral arrangements are featured on a DVD of a 2006 concert recorded in St Paul’s Cathedral, with the singer/songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman. He has recently arranged several pieces for the choir’s collaboration with Robert Plant, which were performed at both Abbey Road Studios and the 2010 BBC Electric Proms.

Operas he has conducted include Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Katerina Ismailova, The Turn of the Screw, Carmen, The Lighthouse, The Merry Widow, Porgy & Bess; Die Fledermaus, The Mikado and The Magic Flute for English National Opera; Street Scene for Scottish Opera; Le Roi d’Ys, Ruslan & Ludmilla, La Wally, Mignon, I Gioelli della Madonna, Mazeppa, The Ballad of Baby Doe, and Drot og Marsk for UCO; and Boris Godunov for Kharkov Opera.