Having studied as a pianist, composer and conductor, Martin Yates made his conducting debut with the Israel National Opera, where over a period of two seasons he conducted productions of La Traviata, La Boheme, Tosca and Madame Butterfly. He has since conducted in the opera houses of Gothenburg, Stockholm and Rome and made his Edinburgh Festival debut conducting Bernstein’s On The Town.

 

He has worked as a guest conductor with many of the UK’s orchestras including the London Symphony, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Scottish National, BBC Concert Orchestra and the Hallé. He has worked extensively in Scandinavia with orchestras including the Gothenburg Symphony, Malmo Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, with whom he conducted the world premiere of Mark Anthony Turnage’s A Prayer Out of Stillness. Elsewhere he has conducted the Tonhalle Zurich, Jerusalem Symphony, Danish Radio Symphony, Royal Flanders Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony, China Philharmonic, Guangzhou Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Malaysian Philharmonic, Tasmanian Symphony and New Zealand Symphony.

 

Ballet has become a significant part of Yates’ musical career. He has been conducting the Royal Ballet regularly at Covent Garden since he made his debut in February 2004 and has also undertaken tours of the US, Asia and Europe with the company. Elsewhere, Yates works regularly with the Norwegian National Ballet, National Ballet of Japan, Paris Opera Ballet, Wiener Staatsballett and Semperoper Ballett Dresden.

 

Yates has recorded over 80 CDs of symphonic repertoire with orchestras such as the Royal Scottish National, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Gothenburg Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, and Royal Flanders Philharmonic. He has an extremely successful relationship with the Dutton Epoch label; current releases include a series of recordings of the music of Richard Arnell, the long-anticipated Moeran’s Sketches for Symphony No. 2 (completed: Martin Yates), Elgar Sea Pictures with Roderick Williams, and Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5. One of the most recent releases is a world premiere complete recording of ‘Scott of the Antarctic’ which features numbers excluded from the final cut of the film. Martin Yates transcribed the excluded numbers especially for this disc.