Ryan Wigglesworth


Ryan Wigglesworth is a composer, conductor and pianist born in Yorkshire, England. He is currently Composer in Residence at English National Opera.

Career

Wigglesworth was educated at Oxford University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and between 2007-9 was a lecturer at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College.
In recent seasons he has appeared with English National Opera, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Britten Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Ensemble Intercontemporain. He has premiered works by composers such as Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Elliott Carter. During the 2012/13 season he returned to ENO for Carmen, as well as to the LPO, RLPO and BCMG. He also made his debut with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester at the Berlin Philharmonie. His recent recording of orchestral works by Birtwistle with the Halle received awards from Gramophone and BBC Music magazines. In addition, it was chosen as disk of the year by Time Out, New York, and it was included in The Sunday Times Best Disks of 2011.
Wigglesworth's compositions include three works for the BBCSO: Sternenfall ; The Genesis of Secrecy, commissioned for the 2009 BBC Proms; and the orchestral song cycle Augenlieder, first performed by the soprano Claire Booth under the composer's direction at the Barbican in 2009. A First Book of Inventions was premiered by the RLPO in 2010, and his Violin Concerto, written for Gordan Nikolic and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, was first performed in Amsterdam in February 2012. His projects include a work for the tenor Mark Padmore, and an orchestral work to mark the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth for the Aldeburgh Festival.
His opera The Winter's Tale, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name, was premiered at English National Opera on 27 February 2017. In 2018, he was composer in residence of the Grafenegg Festival in Lower Austria.