Peter Manning - conductor
Peter Manning is Artistic Director of the Manning Camerata and also held the position of Artistic Director of Sweden’s oldest chamber orchestra, Musica Vitae, from 2008 to 2011. Respected as a leading soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster his blossoming conducting career includes work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, the Edsberg Chamber Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, and the Soloists of The Royal Opera House. He recently made a successful Russian debut with the Krasnoyark Philharmonic and will be returning to work with the Orchestra in future seasons.
With Musica Vitae he performed throughout Scandinavia giving acclaimed concerts in Malmo and Gothenburg where he was invited into the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Series. During his three years as Artistic Director he has also secured a National Radio broadcast contract for the Orchestra. He has conducted concerts in Paris and Rome with the Manning Camerata, the classical group for the 21st century which he started in 2005 to create innovative events that are centered on music and invigorate other disciplines.
“Manning the Baton” is a film portrait of Peter Manning and his work with Musica Vitae by Edmund Fargher which has been selected for the European Documentary Film Awards 2010 and will be shown at forty Film Festivals worldwide. In November 2010 his performance of Brahms’s Symphony No 3 was filmed at Blackheath Concert Hall with the Trinity/Laban Orchestra.
He has a wide-ranging repertory and is active in orchestrating arrangements and commissioning new works. He has recently had his string orchestra arrangement of Schnittke’s String Quartet No 3 accepted by Universal Edition and the Schnittke estate.
Peter Manning first began to play the violin at the age of 5. He attended Chetham's School of Music and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Yossi Zivoni and Indiana University with Josef Gingold. He founded the Britten Quartet in 1986 which established an international reputation and discography, making, during its ten years, over twenty recordings as the first British Quartet to be offered an exclusive EMI contract.
As Concertmaster of The Royal Opera House he has had 10 years’ experience of working closely with the leading opera conductors which has fuelled his passion for the stage. In association with Skånes Dansteater he commissioned a new work by Quigang Chen with choreography by Ben Wright which was premiered in Sweden and Denmark in October 2010.
Peter Manning is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Northern College of Music and is an honorary member of the Royal College of Music. He was recently made International Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.