Martyn Brabbins

Britain's Martyn Brabbins stands out as a highly productive conductor without celebrity trappings, having unearthed numerous overlooked scores and delivered them through assured interpretations. Initial recognition arrived via recordings of contemporary Scottish creators and his central involvement in Hyperion's expansive Romantic Piano Concerto series.

A self-described late starter, Brabbins entered the world on April 13, 1959. He studied at Goldsmith's College and performed with brass bands, yet possessed scant additional stage experience before pursuing conducting instruction with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory between 1986 and 1988. After returning to England, victory in the 1988 Leeds Conductors Competition followed. His first professional appearance occurred that year as an emergency replacement with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Within several years he had appeared as guest with every BBC orchestra plus ensembles of varying stature across England and Ireland. Between 1994 and 2005 he served as associate conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra while also taking the principal conductor post with the contemporary ensemble Sinfonia 21. He voiced particular affinity for repertoire composed after Beethoven, above all Russian figures such as Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Opera assignments accumulated as well, mainly at England's smaller companies, covering Mozart staples alongside Bliss' The Olympians and Tchaikovsky's The Slippers.

His first disc appeared on Hyperion in 1994, forming volume 7 of the Romantic Composers Series and supporting pianist Marc-André Hamelin in works by Adolf Henselt and Charles-Valentin Alkan. In 1997 he led the initial commercial recording of Korngold's Die Kathrin. Artistic direction of the Cheltenham Music Festival occupied him from 2005 to 2007. From 2009 to 2015 he acted as principal guest conductor of DeFilharmonie, also known as the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, and served as chief conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic in Japan from 2012 to 2016. Named music director of the English National Opera in 2016, he stepped down in 2023 to protest funding reductions at the company.

More than 150 recordings on Chandos, NMC, Deutsche Grammophon, and Hyperion stand to his credit. These encompass a 2004 BBC Philharmonic Orchestra release devoted to Cyril Scott, a 2004 Bax collection, and Britten on Film from 2009. Numerous projects with both the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the main BBC Philharmonic explored unfamiliar repertory from Britain and continental Europe. Output quickened in the new century, yielding eight releases in 2011. Six discs emerged in 2020, among them two Hyperion albums containing Vaughan Williams and James MacMillan respectively together with a BIS recording of John Pickard. Activity dipped only briefly during the COVID-19 pandemic before six further releases arrived in 2023, one presenting Charles Villiers Stanford's Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has held a visiting professorship at the Royal College of Music.