DAVID ROBERT COLEMAN
Conductor
The renowned composer and conductor David Robert Coleman was born in London to a German-English family. He studied piano, conducting (with Christopher Adey) and composition (with George Benjamin) at the Royal College of Music in London, where he won several conducting prizes.
Maestro Coleman also studied musicology at King’s College, Cambridge and wrote a thesis on Alban Berg’s “Altenberg Lieder”. Maestro Coleman has worked in Germany for 25 years as a composer, conductor and vocal coach.
He recently recorded a CD with the Berlin Radio Orchestra (RSB Sinfonieorchester) featuring orchestral works by Walter Kaufmann, where he has received unanimous critical acclaim. https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/musique/810975/critique-classique-univers-fascinants-walter-kaufmann
On October 24, Coleman's latest CD appeared with Claudia Stein (principal flute of the Staatskapelle Berlin) and the flute concerts of Kochan and Matthus with the Brandenburg State Orchestra.
In 2021, his new piano concerto, written for Saleem Ashkar, was performed on tour with the Kammerakademie Potsdam under his direction.
In 2018, his piece "Looking for Palestine" for soprano and orchestra was premiered by Elsa Dreisig, Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the London Proms and the Salzburg Festival. His opera "The House of Dr. Hoffmann", with a libretto by Irene Dische, was premiered at the Brandenburg Opera in 2019.
From 2010 to 2018 he was engaged as conductor and pianist at the Staatsoper Berlin, where he conducted several operas such as Bernstein's "Candide", Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress", Wolf-Ferrari's "Aschenputtel". He also conducted contemporary operas at the Staatsoper such as Morton Feldman's "Neither", Nicola Sani's "Falcone" and two premieres of operas by Salvatore Sciarrino ("Macbeth" and "Luci mie traditrici") under the stage direction of Jürgen Flimm. Maestro Coleman conducted Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa's opera "Matsukaze" at the Staatsoper with Barbara Hannigan in the title role at the Opéra de Lille, Hong Kong Arts' Centre and, in 2018, in a television production, at the New National Theater Tokyo.
His chamber opera “Hans im Glück”, based on a Grimm fairy tale, has been performed more than fifty times at the Staatsoper im Schillertheater and, in the summer of 2024, at the Erfurt Theater.
Maestro Coleman has been a guest conductor with orchestras such as the LPO London, Saarbrücken State Orchestra (premiere of Penderecki’s piano concerto), Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra (premiere of Uri Caine’s “Nein”), Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and Berlin Radio Orchestra. He has also conducted performances of operas such as "Tosca" (Staatstheater Braunschweig), "Lulu" (Staatstheater Mainz), "Lied von der Erde" (Ballet, Munich Staatsoper), Walküre (Russian National Orchestra), "An Allem ist Hütchen Schuld" by Siegfried Wagner in Bayreuth.
David Robert Coleman's compositions have been commissioned and performed by international orchestras and ensembles, such as the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Ensemble Modern, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, members of the Berlin Staatskapelle and the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2012, he wrote a new instrumentation of the third act of Berg's "Lulu" for the Berlin State Opera (Barenboim and Andrea Breth) recorded for Deutsche Grammophon.
The music of Maestro David Robert Coleman is published by Éditions Leduc Paris and Ries et Erler Berlin.
