Conductor Change: Pictures at an Exhibition March 13, 14 & 15, 2020

Conductor Ryan Bancroft will replace Maestro Jader Bignamini for this program. We look forward to Mr. Bignamini’s performances with the TSO at a later date. The TSO is grateful to Mr. Bancroft for stepping in to conduct these concerts on short notice.

Ryan Bancroft conductor These performances mark Ryan Bancroft’s North American conducting début.

Ryan Bancroft grew up in Los Angeles and first came to international attention in April 2018 when he won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the prestigious Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen. In September 2019, it was announced that he had been appointed Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. This role will start in the 2020/21 season, and he has been the Principal Conductor Designate since September 2019.

He made his début with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in November 2018, stepping in at short notice for Xian Zhang, to conduct a program of Beethoven and Weber on a tour of North Wales. He returned to the orchestra later that season in May 2019, conducting a program of contemporary music at the Vale of Glamorgan Festival and a studio recording of Sibelius Symphony No. 5.

Recent highlights for Bancroft include débuts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, RAI Turin, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Malmo Symphony Orchestra, and Munich Chamber Orchestra. In North America, he will make his début with the Seattle, Cincinnati, Houston, and Atlanta symphony orchestras and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.

A strong advocate of new music, Bancroft has performed with Amsterdam’s acclaimed Nieuw Ensemble, assisted Pierre Boulez in a performance of his Sur Incises in Los Angeles, premièred works by Sofia Gubaidulina, John Cage, James Tenney, and Anne LeBaron, and has worked closely with improvisers such as Wadada Leo Smith and Charlie Haden.

Bancroft studied trumpet at the California Institute of the Arts, alongside additional studies in harp, flute, cello, and Ghanaian music and dance. He went on to receive an MMus with Distinction from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in orchestral conducting. While studying in Scotland, he played trumpet with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on many occasions. He continued his studies in the Netherlands, where he is now based, and is a graduate of the prestigious Nationale Master Orkestdirectie through the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. As a student, his main mentors were Edward Carroll, Kenneth Montgomery, Ed Spanjaard, and Jac van Steen.