David Coleman

Conductor, Composer, Musician

David Coleman conducts worldwide on the concert platform and in the theatre. He has appeared with nearly all of the major British orchestras and around the world with leading opera house and concert orchestras. He performs in an extensive repertoire of opera, symphonic, chamber and choral concerts and in classical and modern ballet productions. He passionately promotes new music, winning prestigious awards for innovative programming and performance. His recorded work reflects this range. He regularly appears on radio and television discussing music, dance and their performance.

Having begun his career as repetiteur and conductor at the London Opera Centre, David Coleman went on to conduct opera galas and concerts in the major British venues and to appear in international music festivals. His appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of London Festival Ballet (English National Ballet) marked the beginning of his great appreciation of this art form, in which his work is so celebrated.

Rudolf Nureyev appointed David Coleman as Musical Director of his own company Rudolf Nureyev and Friends. They had a long and close association and he is a renowned exponent of Nureyev’s productions. He travelled widely with him, conducted most of the London Nureyev Festivals, premiered several of his major choreographies and recorded the music for several Nureyev films.

From these two engagements and subsequently at the Opera de Paris, David Coleman gained extensive experience in the performance of the entire canon of the Ballet Russes.

Among the many principal European Houses he works with, there have been special associations with Opera de Paris, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opera National de Bordeaux, Theatre du Capitole Toulouse, Teatro San Carlo Napoli and Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. In particular , there is a very close relation over many years with Semperoper Dresden and La Scala Milan.

In recent years he toured extensively in China, the Far East, the Middle East and Australia. It was on tour to Kuwait with La Scala in January 2020, that David Coleman enjoyed his first collaboration with the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera.

Maestro Coleman’s musical life continues as composer and he writes for the concert platform, theatre and TV.

Major works in the Ballet repertoire include:

Paris Opera Paquita (2000) : new score created from Delvedez original writings.

Semperoper Dresden Sleeping Beauty (2007)

La Bayadere (2008) : after Minkus with new writing.

Swan Lake (2009) : after Tchaikovsky

Theatre du Capitole Toulouse La Sylphide (2011) : arranged and re-written

Le Corsaire (2013) : reconstruction.

In addition he has a collection of solo and ensemble dance pieces and also works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles and orchestra, for concert performance.

Recently he completed two string quartets – the first of these premiered in Switzerland August 2020 and recorded in 2022 by Accademia Quartet alla Scala (Giorno e Notte) – a piano trio and a Fantasy for solo Viola (Flowers) which was recorded in Autumn 2022 in Budapest. A violin solo was commissioned by the International ‘Prosecco’ Violin Competition in Vittoria Veneto Italy, October 2021.

Kaleidoscope was composed for and dedicated to the Brass Ensemble of the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra and was recorded in 2023. A video of this recording will be released shortly.

The publisher BMB Paris holds a catalogue of a number of David Coleman’s works.