Photo: Ben Rice.
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Thomas Blunt studied ‘cello and conducting at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, and was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, before studying orchestral conducting at the Royal College of Music with Neil Thomson. As well as conducting concerts with the College orchestras, he also prepared them for visiting conductors, including Bernard Haitink, Andrew Litton, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Roger Norrington, and Vassily Petrenko.
From 2003 – 06, he was Conductor and Musical Director of the South Bank Symphony. Concerts included Brahms Symphony no. 4, Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade, Vaughan Williams Symphony no. 5, Shostakovich Symphony no. 5, Sibelius Symphony no. 2, and Rachmaninov Symphony no. 2.
He has taken part in conducting masterclasses with Haitink, and conducted the last nights of the Benjamin Britten International Opera School’s productions of The Rape of Lucretia and Così fan tutte. He assisted Jan Latham-König for the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano production of The Knot Garden, conducted Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with British Youth Opera, and also conducted the première of Ghosts, a Royal Opera House-commissioned ballet by Dave Maric, at the Linbury Studio Theatre.
In 2006 he took up the position of Chorus Master at Glyndebourne, and in November last year he made his conducting debut with the company with performances of L’Elisir d’Amore on the Tour. He works closely with Vladimir Jurowski the Music Director, and has also collaborated with Mark Elder, Ivàn Fischer, Jirí Belohlávek, Stéphane Denève, Robin Ticciati, Gérard Korsten, and Emmanuelle Haïm. He often works at Glyndebourne as an assistant conductor, recently assisting Edward Gardner on The Turn of the Screw and Richard Egarr on St Matthew Passion. Each year he has conducted opera scenes as part of the Jerwood Chorus Development Scheme, with members of the Chorus and a chamber orchestra formed from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and also recently conducted the off-stage band in Das klagende Lied for Jurowski and the LPO in their first concert of their new season in the newly-refurbished Royal Festival Hall. Future plans this year include assisting Douglas Boyd on Die Zauberflöte for Glyndebourne on Tour; next year he will assist Jurowski for an upcoming Glyndebourne Festival production, conduct a concert with Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra, and conduct the second half of the run of one of the Glyndebourne on Tour productions.