David Angus is Music Director of Glimmerglass Opera and Honorary Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Flanders, following several years as its Principal Conductor, during which time he played a major part in establishing it as Belgium’s most exciting and successful new orchestra.

Born in England, David Angus spent his early years in Belfast. He was a boy chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, under Sir David Willcocks, and he read music at Surrey University where he specialized as a pianist. He finished his training with a Fellowship in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he won several prizes for his opera conducting.

David Angus’s professional career began as a repetiteur with Opera North, before becoming Chorus Master and Staff Conductor for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where he conducted many operas, both in the Festival and on tour. His operatic career then took him to Italy, where he conducted several productions and concerts in Turin, Bologna and Modena. He has worked with Scottish Opera, Opera North and English Touring Opera, and conducted many productions elsewhere in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including several British premieres for the Brighton Festival. He has also worked for the Canadian Opera Company, Opéra National de Paris, Danish National Opera, Malmö Opera and Icelandic Opera.

On the UK concert platform, David Angus regularly conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Mozart Players, both in concert and in the recording studio. He has appeared with most of the major orchestras in the country, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, the BBC’s Philharmonic and Scottish Symphony Orchestras, the Ulster Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Northern Sinfonia.

David Angus broadcasts frequently on BBC Radio 3 and abroad, in Austria, Ireland, Holland, Denmark, Italy, and particularly on Klara, the Belgian Classical Music channel. He conducts orchestras and choirs all over Europe, particularly in Scandinavia where he is a regular guest with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and several Danish orchestras.

An affinity with the music of Benjamin Britten started when he sang for Britten as a boy chorister at Aldeburgh, and since then he has conducted for the Aldeburgh Festival and for several years was the Vocal Consultant to the Britten-Pears School. David Angus has a natural empathy with young musicians and he frequently conducts at the Guildhall School and Trinity College. He also finds working with youth orchestras particularly rewarding.

Following his highly successful U.S. debut last year, David Angus returned to Glimmerglass Opera for Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Opera Cleveland for The Turn of the Screw. He appeared as a guest conductor with the Utah Symphony and this season will conduct the San Antonio Symphony in addition to his duties at Glimmerglass Opera.