Graham Ross has established an exceptional reputation as a sought-after conductor and composer of a very broad range of repertoire. He is co-founder and Principal Conductor of The Dmitri Ensemble and Director of Music and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, with whom his performances around the world and his extensive discography have earned consistently high praise. Awards include a Diapason d’Or, Le Choix de France Musique, Best Orchestral Concert for Australia’s Limelight Magazine, a Gramophone Award nomination and Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and BBC Music Magazines. In demand as a regular guest conductor of other ensembles in the UK and abroad, recent collaborations have included Aurora Orchestra, Aalborg Symfoniorkester, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Haydn Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Mozart Players, BBC Singers, Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra, RCM Symphony, Salomon Orchestra, and Musique Cordiale Festival, as well as acting as assistant conductor to Vladimir Jurowski for a BBC Prom and Chorus Master for another London Philharmonic Orchestra project.
In recent seasons his work has taken him to Sydney Opera House, Washington’s Library of Congress and across Europe. At the age of 25 he made his BBC Proms and Glyndebourne debuts, with other opera work taking him to Jerusalem, London, Aldeburgh and Provence. A passionate believer in the unveiling of both unjustly-neglected and newly-written works, he has conducted and recorded world premières of a wide spectrum of composers, including James MacMillan, Judith Bingham, Giles Swayne, Vaughan Williams, Imogen Holst, Nico Muhly, Brett Dean and Matthew Martin. Since 2011 he has recorded exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA. His latest recordings include the Shostakovich/Barshai Chamber Symphonies with The Dmitri Ensemble and the Victoria 1605 Requiem with the Choir of Clare College.
As a composer commissions have included BBC Concert Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, National Youth Choir of Great Britain, O Duo, Park Lane Group, and the Solstice Quartet. As an animateur and through outreach work he has conducted projects in Tower Hamlets, Wigmore Hall, English National Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and overseas in Nigeria, Palestine, across Europe and the USA. He is Artistic Director of Fringe in the Fen, a music and arts festival in Fenstanton, Cambridgeshire raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.
He studied music at Clare College, Cambridge and conducting at the Royal College of Music, London. He held a conducting scholarship with the London Symphony Chorus, has served as assistant conductor for Diego Masson, Sir Roger Norrington and Nicholas Collon, and acted as Chorus Master for Sir Colin Davis, Sir Mark Elder, Ivor Bolton, Edward Gardner, Richard Tognetti and Lars Ulrik Mortensen.
Photo © Benjamin Ealovega