Alice Farnham trained under the legendary pedagogue Ilya Musin and Leonid Korchmar at the St. Petersburg State Conservatoire, she enjoys a growing reputation both in the UK and abroad.
Alice was Music Director of Welsh National Youth Opera for their 2013 production of Paul Bunyan to critical acclaim. She was recently invited by Valery Gergiev to conduct Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at the Mariinsky St Petersburg in November 2013.
Alice has conducted Singapore Lyric Opera (Die Zauberflöte), English Touring Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Grange Park Opera Rising Stars & Pimlico Opera (Falstaff, I Capuleti e I Montecchi), London City Opera USA Tour (Carmen), Bampton Classical Opera (Haydn Le Pescatrice). Alice has conducted Covent Garden Royal Ballet (Giselle), Birmingham Royal Ballet (Swan Lake, Beauty & the Beast, Serenade, Still Life in a Penguin Cafe, Enigma, E=MC2, Powder), English National Ballet (Nutcracker, Alice in Wonderland, Canterville Ghost), Rambert Ballet (Lady into Fox), Danish Royal Ballet (Giselle) and Slovenia National Theatre (Giselle).
She is an experienced conductor of contemporary music including the World Premiere of Charlotte Bray’s Making Arrangements for Tête à Tête Opera to critical acclaim. In 2008 she conducted the Royal Ballet New Works at the Linbury including Graham Fitkin’s Reel, which won Best Stage Work, for the British Composers’ Awards. She has also conducted large-scale communities concerts and operas including David Bedford’s Titanic at Carlisle Sands and Martin Read’s Round-about Basingstoke at the Anvil.
Alice is known for her work with young singers and musicians and is on the staff at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and recently conducted an Opera Gala Concert with the vocal students and RWCMD Chamber Orchestra, a Side-by-Side concert with Welsh National Opera and the RWCMD, and Opera Scenes performances. She is Music Director of Cumbria Youth Orchestra and is a regular Guest Conductor of the South Bank Sinfonia. She has taught on singing courses including an Opera Summer School with Donald Maxwell at the Royal Welsh College and masterclasses in Singapore.
For three years she was Artistic Director of the Borås Symphony Orchestra in Sweden, and recently conducted the Brighton Philharmonic, the Chandos Symphony Orchestra and Oxford Chamber Orchestra.
As an experienced Assistant Conductor, she has assisted Semyon Bychkov, Maurizio Benini, and Boris Grusin at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Lothar Koenigs and Michael Hofstetter at Welsh National Opera. She has worked on numerous productions as a regular member of the Guest Music Staff at the Royal Opera House since 2005. From 2001-4 she was Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor at Gothenburg Opera, Sweden. Alice was Chorus Master at Opera Holland Park in 2006-7.
She began her career as an organist, holding Organ Scholarships at St. Hugh’s College Oxford where she read Music and later was Organ Fellow at St. Thomas’ Fifth Avenue, New York. For three years she studied Symphonic and Operatic Conducting at the St. Petersburg State Conservatoire under the legendary pedagogue, Ilya Musin.
