I have been so fortunate to have met and worked with some truly great musicians who have shaped my life.

I was a founding member and Principal oboe of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for 21 memorable years. Surely one of the greatest orchestras in the world, its philosophy is simple; the joy of making music together at the highest possible level and creating life long friendships that transcend national boundaries.

There were many highlights, but some experiences stand out:

The humanity of Alexander Schneider, (violinist of the legendary Budapest String Quartet and close friend of Pablo Casals); emotionally charged concerts with Claudio Abbado, who could shape the sound of the orchestra with a gesture; the revolution of working with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and being part of a Beethoven Symphony cycle, which – it is no exaggeration – changed our perceptions of how the music of the great "Classical" composers should be performed; the warmth and complete conviction of Paavo Berglund. Performing and recording Sibelius symphonies with him, was simply being involved with a true master at work.

“I always wanted to conduct but I am glad I waited. These 21 years were the best conducting lessons I could have imagined.”

After a memorable concert with COE in Paris in 2002 with Claudio Abbado I put my oboe in its box for the last time. Watch the full video on YouTube.

My first major conducting commitment (and first love) was Manchester Camerata. I had 10 fabulous years with them as Music Director and I have nothing but admiration for their musicianship and friendship. Working on a financial shoestring, they nevertheless always perform at the highest level of commitment, energy and quality. Our Beethoven Symphony cycle is testimony to that.

My work with Camerata opened up invitations from other parts of the world. As Artistic Partner of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minnesota for 6 years and Principal Guest Conductor of the Colorado Symphony, I have spent a lot of time making music in the US.

Conducting continues to take me to all corners of the globe, but whether I am performing in Melbourne, Hong Kong, Budapest or at home in the UK, I try to stay true to the “COE spirit” which has shaped me.

I spent 7 years as Music Director with Musikkollegium Winterthur, now one of Switzertland’s leading orchestras. It was an honour to follow in the distant footsteps of conductors such as Richard Strauss, Furtwangler and Busch, all of whom enjoyed relationships with MKW.

My main commitments now are split between opera and the concert hall. As Artistic Director of Garsington Opera, I have a wonderful opportunity to shape the future of one of the UK’s great summer opera festivals. With orchestre de chambre de Paris, I have an orchestra embracing the future on and off the stage, which has exciting partnerships with the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Philharmonie and a commitment to engage in the cultural life of Paris, in particular through innovative educational projects which reach thousands of children and adults across the Paris region.

More important than all of this – is my family, my 3 extraordinary children and my wife Sally, whose love, support and musicianship (she is a wonderful cellist) has sustained me over the years.

Douglas Boyd made his conducting debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall.

“Explosive Schubert and deft Mozart from the Philharmonia”

There were real high points: a piquant oboe gleamed against shadowy, nervous cellos and basses in an atmospheric opening, and the great climax was a scream of existential despair, followed by abyssal silence.  Boyd’s performance was breathlessly exciting, and totally thrilling in its effects. Bachtrack Benjamin Poore

Douglas Boyd set a lively pace from the outset, but it was the dynamic balance of his unfussy direction that lent the performance its cumulative strength and continual, gripping momentum. He knew what he wanted to hear at every turn

The Scherzo’s Trio was infused with wine-soaked nostalgia, and the finale’s endless dance stayed light on its feet to the end thanks to the stamina of the strings and the accents and attacks cultivated by Boyd, who as principal oboe of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe played the symphony often enough under Claudio Abbado to communicate for himself its elemental vitality. theartsdesk.com Peter Quantrill

The Philharmonia, playing at its best, responded to Boyd’s perceptive interpretation in which the balancing of parts was exemplary. Schubert marks più moto 115 bars before the end. Ideally judging the increase of pace, Boyd moved the music unrelentingly forward to thrilling effect. At this speed the return of the opening horn theme was triumphant. The combination of brilliance and grace, especially at the quiet start of the development evoking the vision of a calm seascape, ideally concluded a reading of considerable conviction.

Classical Source Antony Hodgson

2018/19 Season – Orchestre de chambre de Paris

LES 40 ANS DE L’ORCHESTRE DE CHAMBRE DE PARIS

“D’autant que, du point de vue de l’exécution, la réussite est au rendez-vous, sous la houlette vigilante de Douglas Boyd, qui tient fermement l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris tout en laissant respirer l’ouvrage.” Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, September 2018, BACHTRACK

“Sous la baguette d’un Douglas Boyd enjoué, avec la complicité d’une Deborah Nemtanu conquérante, d’un James Way convaincant et d’un captivant Mark Padmore, le public parisien passe une soirée haute en couleur et riche en émotions.” Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, September 2018, OLYRIX

GALA BEL CANTO

“Transfiguré sous la baguette de Douglas Boyd, l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris se surpasse, et la qualité de la formation ne souffre quasiment aucun reproche. Le Directeur musical du Garsington Opera (qui, paradoxalement, ne donne plus d’ouvrages belcantistes depuis son arrivée) n’est pas ici qu’un accompagnateur, mais il offre ici une version élégante, renouvelée et captivante de pages ordinairement rebattues (en particulier l’ouverture de Guillaume Tell, absolument remarquable. Rendez-vous l’année prochaine?” Philharmonie, December 2018, FORUMOPERA.COM

L’ENFANCE DU CHRIST – BERLIOZ ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

“Grand moment du premier week-end Berlioz à la Philharmonie – le second est prévu en juin – le concert de l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris n’a pas déçu. Douglas Boyd a évité les deuz écueils qui guettent toute exécution du triptyque: la miévrerie sulpicienne et le surdimensionnement opératique – même si Le Songe d’Hérode ressortit à la grande scène dramatique. Il cherche des couleurs, souligne les subtilités de l’instrumentation, tend le fil de la narration, des frayeurs du tétrarque à l’a cappella dépouillé du chœur mystique final. L’orchestre joue le jeu et le Chœur de la Radio flamande est magnifique.” Philharmonie, December 2018, CONCERTONET.COM

Strauss ‘Capriccio’ Garsington Opera 2018

★★★★
“Douglas Boyd conducts; he draws idiomatically lush playing from the house orchestra.” NEIL FISHER The Times

“There was no weak link. Boyd drew ripe voluptuous yet delicate playing from the large orchestra in a score fraught with complexity which yet must sound silken and sheer.” FIONA MADDOCKS The Observer

“I succumbed to the virtuosity of charm and artifice with which Strauss balances all the strands of the comedy, honoured with subtle efficiency both by Albery’s direction and by Douglas Boyd’s neatly tailored conducting. ‘Moonlight’ music, the playing is big on detail and style, as indeed is the whole, impeccable evening.” PETER REED Classical Source

★★★★★
“Douglas Boyd conducts this translucent, ornate score with dedication and affection…world-class singing in civilised surroundings, that demonstrate Strauss’s cultivated values.” CLAUDIA PRITCHARD Culture Whisper

★★★★
“A final scene in which we glimpse Straussian heaven. A moving conversation with Strauss.” HUGO SHIRLEY Financial Times

“The Garsington Opera Orchestra gave a scintillating account of the score under Douglas Boyd’s sympathetic, affectionate direction. Boyd clearly loves this music with a passion, and it shows in every bar. Outstanding.” MELANIE ESKENAZI Music OMH

“The first thing to be pointed up in this production must be the passionate playing drawn from the super-sized Garsington Opera Orchestra by Boyd, the sense of sweep and onward impulse never exhausted for a second.” ANDREW GREEN Opera Now

“Boyd captured the transparency of the densely motivic score, allowing both the words to be heard without undue effort and the multitude of instrumental motifs to make their mark lightly but lucidly. Capriccio may, superficially, seem negligently inconsequential but, as Tim Albery and Douglas Boyd show, it gives us hope. CLAIRE SEYMOUR Opera Today

“Under the baton of Douglas Boyd, this is a musical joy, especially the soaring ‘moonlight’ interlude.” CHRISTOPHER GREY Oxford Times

“Douglas Boyd showed himself to be a fine Straussian. In particular he made the Moonlight Music as it needs to be: achingly lovely, so that one longs for more but is rightly denied it.” MICHAEL TANNER The Spectator

“Artistic Director Douglas Boyd conducts Garsington Opera Orchestra in an evening that is close to perfection.” CLARE COLVIN Sunday Express

“Boyd conducts a sumptuous account of the music – some of it so lovely, so fragrant, so delicately wrought.” RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN The Daily Telegraph

“Under Douglas Boyd’s direction, the musical edifice was splendidly sustained, repeatedly spinning golden harmony out of Strauss’s moments of ingeniously controlled chaos…this serene production is a hit.” MICHAEL CHURCH The Independent

“It sounds wonderful too. Douglas Boyd allows Strauss’s long lines to flow as he elucidates the complexity of the composer’s super-enriched harmonies and gorgeous orchestral writing.” GEORGE HALL The Stage

Orchestre de chambre de Paris 2017

Beethoven and Beamish at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées:

“La rencontre internationale entre le prodige new-yorkais du piano et fin spécialiste de Beethoven, le soliste américain Jonathan Biss et le grand Orchestre de chambre de Paris, sous la dynamique direction du sympathique écossais Douglas Boyd, l’un des meilleurs directeurs qu’ait connu l’OCP selon nous.”
Goûts et Passions

Haydn The Seasons at Philharmonie de Paris:

“On oublie ou on néglige l’OCP, qui passe pour le parent pauvre des orchestres parisiens. C’est un tort: ses Saisons de Haydn viennent de le prouver. L’ensemble y a montré une belle homogénéité des pupitres et une capacité à maîtriser les grandes œuvres du répertoire – plus long que La Création, le dernier oratorio de Haydn exige beaucoup des musiciens. Douglas Boyd a le geste aussi sûr que généreux, situe l’œuvre à sa juste place, sans la tirer vers le romantisme – même si elle le prépare. La direction séduit par sa clarté et son énergie, excellant aussi bien dans les pages descriptives que dans les grands passages choraux: l’orage de l’Eté, l’Introduction de l’Hiver sont trés évocateurs, le chœur final est grandiose. Le chef écossais a aussi le sens de la narration, ce qui lui permet d’animer les différents tableaux – rien de fragmentaire ici.”
DIDIER VAN MOERE ConcertoNet

“La collaboration entre l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris et Douglas Boyd remonte à 2015, et leur fréquentation de la musique de Haydn à la saison dernière avec Les sept dernières paroles du Christ, donné dans la salle de la Cité de la musique (retrouvez-en notre compte-rendu). Leur entente est audible dès Le printemps alliant précision, légèreté, énergie et fougue. Au centre de l’orchestre trône un pianoforte qui accompagne tous les récits. Sans baguette, le chef parvient à unir l’orchestre et le chœur, soulignant les différentes dynamiques et phrasés de l’œuvre.”
FRÉDÉRIQUE EPIN Olyrix

“Un succès manifestement obtenu par la direction constamment inspirée et dynamique de Douglas Boyd soulevant avec enthousiasme les forces réunies de l’orchestre de chambre de Paris, des solistes et du Chœur Accentus!”
MICHEL JAKUBOWICZ ON Magazine

Debussy, Ravel, Haydn and a world premiere by Bruno Mantovani at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées:

“C’était à la harpiste Isabelle Moretti d’assumer le rôle de soliste dans les deux œuvres de Mantovani et Debussy. S’acquittant de sa tâche avec une belle conviction, Isabelle Moretti trouvait en Douglas Boyd et l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris des partenaires parfaits. Quant à Ravel et Haydn ils trouvaient en Douglas Boyd, galvanisant avec entrain les musiciens de l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris, un interprète idéal.”
MICHEL JAKUBOWICZ ON Magazine

Tour of New Zealand and Australia, October 2017

Mendelssohn and Schumann with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra:

“Boyd brought a highly individual approach to Mendelssohn…and achieved a spirited performance of the original 1841 version of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, with marvellous clarity and impetus, the scherzo taken at a hair-raising fast tempo!”
PETER DONNELLY The Mercury

Beethoven with the Auckland Philharmonia:

“With unflagging energy and fire, Boyd and his musicians caught every surprise and musical U-turn, while doing full justice to the work’s rich and prescient Adagio.”
New Zealand Herald

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5 with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra:

“There is something very serene about conductor Douglas Boyd – the way he walks modestly on and off stage, his graceful hand movements. I had the feeling that I had gone on a magical journey. with Boyd and the orchestra as my guides.”
TIFFANY HA Seesaw Magazine

Mozart ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ Orchestre de chambre de Paris & Garsington Opera 2017

“Un mariage anglo-français à l’italienne, à Vienne. Mais aussi une soirée lyrique fantastique au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Mémorable.”
Classique News

Mozart ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ Garsington Opera 2017

“Douglas Boyd…recalls the style of the great Viennese Mozartians and as one might expect of this former oboist gives the woodwinds every opportunity to shine, as Mozart does. Magic. Bravo Cox, bravo Boyd, bravi tutti.”
HUGH CANNING Opera

★★★★★
“Douglas Boyd shows off the prowess of the fine Garsington Opera Orchestra by exploring lowest levels of pianissimo and daring the singers to match. The audience cannot help but be enchanted by this magical Figaro.”
INGE KJEMTRUP The Stage 

“Oozing class, underpinned by Garsington Opera’s Music Director Douglas Boyd’s energy and assurance in the pit.”
ANDREW GREEN Opera Now

“However many Figaros you may have seen, this one should not be missed.”
CLARE COLVIN Sunday Express

★★★★
“Douglas Boyd’s reading of the score works hand-in-glove with Cox’s approach, emphasising the rococo elegance and timeless charm of the music.
KATHERINE COOPER BachTrack

★★★★★
“John Cox and Douglas Boyd clearly enjoy working together and it shows in a variety of subtle ways. This is no ordinary Figaro – there is a tangible sense of affection in every bar…pacing the action so that it flows effortlessly forward. Douglas Boyd conducts with authority and passion. This production brings us close to the beating heart of Figaro the opera.
DOUGLAS COOKSEY Classical Source

“A highlight of the season, John Cox’s acclaimed Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Garsington Opera’s Artistic Director, Douglas Boyd, is a wonderful production. The show is silly, wise, passionate, affecting and genuinely funny.”
Daily Information

“I can’t imagine a more perfect setting, nor a more beautiful, faithful and entrancing production.”
GAY PIRRIE-WEIR Fine Times Recorder

“La réussite de la soirée doit énormément à la direction de Douglas Boyd. Son Mozart est vif et pétulant, en un mot: théâtral. Mais le chef écossais sait aussi aller chercher dans la partition des détails d’orchestration inhabituels, nous donnant alors l’impression de redécouvrir l’ouvrage. Boyd nous propose ainsi un tapis sonore quelque fois inédit mais toujours authentiquement mozartien.”
JEAN MICHEL PENNETIER Forum Opéra

Tchaikovsky “Eugene Onegin” Garsington 2016

Our critic is blown away by Garsington’s excellent Eugene Onegin

“But it was the musical performance under Douglas Boyd that really lifted the spirits. Indeed, in almost 30 years of attending Garsington, I don’t think I have heard a ‘classic’ opera cast with such care and accomplishment”.

HUGH CANNING Sunday Times

Douglas Boyd makes a virtue of leanness by conducting an admirably taut account of this marvellous score”.

RICHARD MORRISON The Times

“With fine support from Garsington’s musical director, Douglas Boyd and his orchestra, this is a triumph”.

DAVID MELLOR DAILY MAIL

“It is rarer than it should be to see a cast in Yevgeny Onegin that one can believe in, or to hear Tchaikovsky’s ardent and heartbreaking score performed with an uncomplicated sense of its drama and lyrical ebb and flow. That’s what Garsington and its music director Douglas Boyd achieved with this production, though, offering an Onegin that tugged at the heartstrings and pricked the tear ducts with unerring skill. And the clear-sightedness is what stuck in the mind, not least given the quality of Boyd’s conducting, flexible and impassioned, and bringing out playing of the very highest quality from the Garsington orchestra”.

HUGO SHIRLEY Opera

“With superb conducting and committed orchestral playing, though, Tchaikovsky is well served. The singing is heartbreaking, from Brindley Sherratt’s exquisite rendition of Prince Gremin’s aria to Roderick Williams’s tonally gorgeous but psychologically screwed-up Onegin, a man he plays as beset but emotions but hostage to the mores of his time”.

MARK VALENCIA  What’s On Stage

“Douglas Boyd’s urgent, well-shaped conducting perfectly complemented the unfolding drama”.

BARRY MILLINGTON Evening Standard

“Garsington Opera opens with a thrilling and full-blooded production of Eugene Onegin that gets to the heart of its conflicting and conflicted characters…I have never been more moved by the opening pages – the sisters sing dreamily of their future as the older women look back on how their own ideals were tempered by practicality, love sacrificed on the way. The musical and visual juxtaposition is simply heartbreaking…Douglas Boyd whisks the orchestra inexorably to the drama’s tumultuous end”.

CLAUDIA PRITCHARD Culture Whisper

“The orchestra under Douglas Boyd gave a wonderfully lyrical account of the score. Lithe and passionate, the performance was beautifully fluid but focussed and controlled, so that under Douglas Boyd’s disciplined hands the passion was there but the orchestra never came anywhere near overwhelming the singers.

This was a superb season opener, a demonstration of how Garsington Opera has moved on from being and outstanding specialist in a couple of composers, into a house where immensely thoughtful highly crafted work is being done in all areas”

ROBERT HUGILL Opera Today

“In the pit, Douglas Boyd and the Garsington Opera bring Tchaikovsky’s heartfelt, harrowing score magnificently to life. This Eugene Onegin was a highpoint of a very successful Garsington season…”.

GEOFFREY SMITH Arts Journal

“With its large orchestra and very large chorus, Eugen Onegin is Garsington Opera’s most ambitious production in its twenty-eight seasons. Conducted by the company’s artistic director, Douglas Boyd, and directed by Michael Boyd (no relation), artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2002-2012, and with large scale sets by Tom Piper, also a veteran of the RSC (as well as the designer of the WWI-commemorating swathe of ceramic red poppies first seen at the Tower of London with artist Paul Cummins), this is Garsington Opera’s biggest adventure yet. It’s a triumph”.

PAUL LEVY Critics Circle

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