Michael Woods - Australian cross-over conductor (dirigent/dirijor)
Michael Woods studied trombone at the Victorian College of the Arts. He was a principal player in the Australian Youth Orchestra and the orchestras of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Victoria State Opera, Australian Opera and Ballet and Australian Pops. As a 21 year old, he won the audition for a permanent principal position in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
His graduate conducting qualification comes from the University of Melbourne where he studied with international British conductor John Hopkins OBE. He has also studied at the University of Oklahoma and with Judith Clurman at the Juilliard School in New York and Kirk Trevor in the Czech Republic.
For some years, he has been directing concerts combining traditional orchestral classics with modern classics from film, theatre and jazz – so-called Music for the People programs which appeal to audiences of widely ranging age and musical background. As a cross-over conductor in Australia and London, he has appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra, Australian Pops Orchestra, Orchestra of the Stars, Adelaide Symphony, Australian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Beethoven Consort and the Chamber Orchestra at St Paul’s. In Europe, he also worked with the Martinu Philharmonic in the Czech Republic and Bucharest Sinfonia in the famous Romanian Ateneum. His European recordings include the four symphonies of Robert Schumann with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.
Apart from cross-over pops work, he has continued to direct the Chamber Orchestra at St Paul’s in concerts including Mozart Masses and Handel Anthems, as well as classical and romantic symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn and Mendelssohn. He has also become well-known as an orchestral accompanist for Australian instrumentalists and singers such as pianist, Rebecca Chambers, mezzo-soprano, Sally-Anne Russell, pianist/organist, Lachlan Redd, flautist, Derek Jones and harpist, Delyth Stafford. For the Melbourne Zelman Symphony, his concerts have included major works of Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Beethoven.
During the past year, he travelled to Europe three times - first to perform Symphonic Pink Floyd and the Nutcracker Suite with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchestra in the Berlin Konzerthaus before directing nine concerts with violinist, Michael Barenboim and the Leipzig Kammerphilharmonie in the Gewandhaus and the Berlin Sinfonietta in the Philharmonie. He travelled to Zagreb and Zadar, to conduct Music for the People (From Bach to Lennon) concerts with the Zagreb Philharmonic. He then made return visits to Romania for Music for the People and Mozart Festival concerts in Valcea and Bucharest.
Last December, he directed three Christmas with the Chamber Orchestra at St Paul's concerts at Melbourne Recital Centre. He returned with the orchestra to MRC for a Spring season of four The Genius of Early Mozart concerts and has just undertaken another pre-Christmas Romanian cross-over tour for Musical Jewels and Eye of the Tiger! concerts in Bucharest, Giurgiu and Valcea.
After last year's season of Puccini's La Rondine, he again joined Melbourne City Opera for the preparation of The Joan Sutherland Story and Verdi's Stifellio.