Oliver Gooch

Conductor

Oliver Gooch (Conductor) HeadshotAn inspiring and charismatic musician, Oliver Gooch is highly regarded by colleagues, critics and audiences alike. Antonio Pappano created a position for him at the Royal Opera House as the first Associate Conductor (Vilar) and he has since made his Royal Opera debut with them on tour in Australia with Haydn's L'isola disabitata. He also received a Southbank Sky Arts Award nomination for the world premiere of Heart of Darkness in the Linbury.

Mr Gooch is rapidly establishing a reputation as a conductor of considerable versatility in a wide range of symphonic and operatic repertoire. Following his appointment by Sir Antonio Pappano as the first Associate Young Artist at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2004, his conducting career to date has seen collaborations with many of the major UK orchestras, including the LSO, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Halle, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and Northern Sinfonia. He has also continued to have a fruitful relationship with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as a regular guest conductor. Further afield, he has made highly acclaimed debuts with the Queensland and Tasmanian Symphonies in Australia, New York Sinfonietta, Orchestra i Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan, and Orchestra della Toscana. He has an ongoing relationship with Italy's major touring company, Associazione Lirica e Concertistica Italiana (AsLico).

Oliver Gooch conducting ICSO He remains committed to nurturing new talent. He spearheaded the development of two Young Artist Programmes, one for Mid Wales Opera and, most recently, Iford Arts' New Generation Artists, an initiative to identify and support young singers, directors, designers, costume designers and conductors in the early stages of their careers. He has also conducted and presented a number of community operas as Artistic Director of Music at Bray, in partnership with the Windsor Festival, including Noye's Fludde, The Happy Prince, The Little Sweep, Amahl and the Night Visitors and Saint Nicolas. He was also invited to conduct performances of Noye's Fludde with over five hundred school children for the North Wales International Festival in St Asaph's Cathedral in 2015. He has also received recognition for his desire to take opera into new places. His resurrection of the 18th century ballad opera, Inkle and Yarico by Samuel Arnold in Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, was produced alongside the anniversary of the Act to abolish the slave trade, broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Oliver received his training at Cambridge University, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio. He studied conducting at the Tanglewood Festival under Robert Spano and Seiji Ozawa, and was subsequently nominated for the prestigious Rolex/Mentor Protege Arts Initiative in Geneva, under Sir Colin Davis. In 2006 he was awarded a prestigious Clore Fellowship, a programme designed to nurture new generations of cultural leaders, and in 2007, he was elected the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

"Oliver Gooch, conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, approaches the score with a blend of command and flexibility, never short-changing the grand emotional climaxes" GEORGE HALL, The Guardian

History


Imperial College Symphony Orchestra is the College's flagship orchestra, performing to the very highest standard. ICSO is rightly regarded as one of the best university orchestras in the UK, becoming "University Orchestra of the Year" in 2008 and being described by a member of the panel, (RPO Principal Bassoon Daniel Jamieson), as "sounding like a professional orchestra".

Since its establishment in 1948 the orchestra has flourished under the acclaimed professional conductor Richard Dickins, and more recently Oliver Gooch. The orchestra is run by a committee of full-time students. ICSO boasts around eighty players and regularly performs both on and off campus; ICSO has an annual concert with the Thomas Hardye Singers in Dorchester, as well as performances in venues such as Winchester Cathedral and Cadogan Hall, home of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Memorable highlights in recent years include a performance of Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, a children's concert with Professor Lord Robert Winston, performing excerpts of Bizet's Carmen with four world-renowned opera singers and a performance of Dvorak's Cello Concerto with BBC Young Musician 2012 Laura van der Heijden to a sold out Cadogan Hall. As well as giving performances with soloists who are students at Imperial College, ICSO often has the opportunity to work with highly respected professionals, including Charles Owen, Raphael Wallfisch, Andrew Zolinsky, Michael Thompson, Bernard Roberts and Lara Melda.

ICSO made its first television appearance in Christmas 2002, featuring in an episode of Channel 4's "Faking It", in which conductor Richard Dickins was given the task of transforming punk singer Chris Sweeney into a maestro capable of conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The documentary won a BAFTA award and the Golden Rose award at the Montreux Festival. In October 2003, ICSO spent two days at the Royal College of Music filming for Professor Robert Winston's BBC documentary series, 'The Human Mind'.

The orchestra has also enjoyed several successful international tours. These have included tours to Spain, South Africa, Italy and most recently, Finland. Highlights of recent tours included the opportunity to participate in the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival and performing in the world famous Sibelius Hall in aid of UNICEF on our tour to Helsinki in September 2014. Last year, the orchestra played a series of concerts in Slovenia and Croatia.

Players

Name Course Year Remarks
Alexander Castagna Mechanical Engineering 1
Angela Ng Mechanical Engineering 1
Anson Poon Physics 2 Ash Scholar
Camilla Chellapermal Trainee - Hodge, Jones and Allen Solicitors
Junhyuk Bae Computing 1
Kiran Kodavatganti Computing 2 Ash Scholar
Lizzie Daniels Medicine 4 Principal , Ash Scholar
Michael Fu Medicine 2 Committee (2020/21)
Samira Brunmayr Joint Maths and Computing
Samuel Bartram Medicine 2 Ash Scholar
Songqiao Yang Geophysics 3
Tim Heightman Physics 2
Wern Shynn Soon Mechanical Engineering 2

Name Course Year Remarks
Alexander Kruse Mechanical Engineering 1
Amy Collis Mechanical Engineering 1 Committee (2020/21)
Amy Lovejoy Medicine 2
Avishka Edirisinghe Physics and Music 3 Principal
Florian Song Chemistry (Postgraduate)
Gabriella Rubin Electronic and Electric Engineering 3
Giovanni Passerello Computing 3
Ko Tsz Wang E.E.E. with Management 1
Leila Al-Azzawi Design Engineering 1
Linden Schrecker MRes - Advanced Molecular Synthesis -2
Lorenzo Versini Physics
Lucy Bett Medicine 2
Sam Castle Design Engineering 2
Sima Jovanovic Civil Engineering 3
Tony Wang Maths 2
Xue Hui Tan Medical Biosciences 2

Name Course Year Remarks
Amy Woodward Geophysics 2 Committee (2020/21)
Ellen Wrathall Medicine 2 Committee (2020/21)
Francis Melville Medicine 6 Principal
Illiana Ren Geology 1
Jorge Castellar-Montes Chemistry 1
Mingke Peng Maths 1
Niamh Henegan Medicine 1
Shanila Fernandez-Patel Biomedical Engineering 4

Name Course Year Remarks
Alexander Brunmayr MSc - Applied Mathematics
Christopher Wilkin Physics 2 Principal , Ash Scholar
Daniella Soussi Medicine 3 Committee (2020/21)
Danilo Dela Cruz Maths 1 Committee (2020/21)
Elizabeth Porter Physics 3 Ash Scholar
Gordon Lee Computing 1
Jeremy Cohen Materials 2 Committee (2020/21)
Joseph Folkes Design Engineering 1
Joshua Gray Physics and Music 1
Nicole Ching Chemical Engineering 2 Committee (2020/21)
Sydney Lo Biotechnology 1
Yasmin Herbert Biochemistry 2 Committee (2020/21)
Yilong Huang Mechanical Engineering 1
Yitong Jin MSc - Applied Computational Science & Engineering

Name Course Year Remarks
Adeoluwa Pearse Chemical Engineering 2
Arnold Ching MSc - Risk Management & Financial Engineering Principal
Ben Sauer Physics (Staff)

Name Course Year Remarks
Alice Miller Medicine 2 Principal , Ash Scholar
Nadia Mason Earth and Planetary Science 1 Ash Scholar

Name Course Year Remarks
Anna Rhodes Molecular Bioengineering 2
Federico Bongiorno Maths (Postgraduate)
Thomas Fisher Mechanical Engineering 4

Name Course Year Remarks
Helen Ray-Jones MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences
Philippa Stevens MSc - Climate Change, Management and Finance
Thomas Unitt-Jones Maths 2

Name Course Year Remarks
Alex Usher Computing 1 Ash Scholar , Committee (2020/21)
David Wringe Medicine 4 Ash Scholar
Giles Chick Medicine 6

Name Course Year Remarks
Luke Melville Physics 2

Name Course Year Remarks
Alexandra Richards Epidemiology (Postgraduate)
Benjamin Miller Physics 2 Ash Scholar
Cara Waters Physics 2
Lydia Daniels Medicine 5

Name Course Year Remarks
Anna Bake Social Anthropology (LSE) 1
David Wheeler Medicine 3 Ash Scholar , Committee (2020/21)
Kian Parsapour Medicine 1
Michael Kohn Maths 2 Ash Scholar
Peter Costello Chemistry 1 Ash Scholar

Name Course Year Remarks
Joshua Parks Biochemistry 1
Rui Cao Fluid Mechanics (Postgraduate)
Tom Mace Mechanical Engineering (Postgraduate)

Name Course Year Remarks
Angus Grierson Physics and Music 1
Joel Kelion Geophysics 2
Max Cao Physics 3

Name Course Year Remarks
Ben Woolley Chemistry 4
Yinghao Wang Mechanical Engineering 1

Name Course Year Remarks

Name Course Year Remarks
Thomas Blore Maths 1
Una Miralles Computing 1 Ash Scholar

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