Laurence Cummings

British conductor and harpsichordist Laurence Cummings makes his Royal Opera debut in the 2018/19 Season conducting Berenice in the Linbury Theatre. He made his Royal Opera House debut in 2000 conducting Gluck’s Alceste for the English Bach Festival in the Linbury Studio Theatre. 

Cummings was organ scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, and since 1999 has been Musical Director of the London Handel Festival. In 2012 he became Artistic Director of the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, and he is also Music Director of the Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música in Porto. Selected opera conducting appearances include Saul, The Fairy Queen and Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne Festival), King Arthur (Zürich Opera), Saul (Theater an der Wien), Idomeneo and Giulio Cesare (Göteborg Opera), L’incoronazione di Poppea (Opera North), Radamisto, Orfeo and The Indian Queen (English National Opera), Orfeo (Handel and Haydn Society), Arminio, Lotario and Imeneo (International Handel Festival, Göttingen) and, for the London Handel Festival, Giove in Argo, Ariodante, Faramondo, Agrippina, Riccardo Primo and Tolomeo among others. He has also conducted many of Handel’s oratorios, including for London Handel Festival and the International Handel Festival, Göttingen. 

In concert, Cummings works regularly with The English Concert and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and has also conducted orchestras including the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony, Ulster Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Zürich Chamber Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra, Washington. He has recorded prolifically, including for the Harmonia Mundi, Sony BMG and Naxos labels. He is William Crotch Professor of Historical Performance at the Royal Academy of Music.