Samuel Hogarth is an experienced conductor of orchestras, opera, choirs and small groups. He has worked with ensembles around the UK and Germany and is currently engaged as Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater Mainz, where he has performed works such as La Bohème, Rigoletto (see review), Dialogues des Carmélites, La Traviata, Médée, Armide, Carmina Burana and a range of concert works including the Freischütz overture, Karfreitagszauber from Wagner’s Parsifal and Bach’s cantata no 38, “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir”. The 2017/18 season will see him conduct the new production of La Clemenza di Tito and a revival of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as a concert programme including Stravinsky’s Circus Polka for a Young Elephant and Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit. 2017 saw his debut as a guest conductor in Kaiserslautern with Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles, to critical acclaim (see/hear reviews in the NMZ, SWR and nationwide radio station DeutschlandFunk, all in German). He has also conducted as a guest in Magdeburg (The Nutcracker, La Bohème) and in 2016 conducted preparatory workshops in Glyndebourne (see preview video) for the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet, returning to the 2017 Glyndebourne festival to work under Vladimir Jurowski as cover conductor for the world premiere production.

Previous projects have included Verdi’s Falstaff at the Château de Berbiguières (2012) in a new production directed by Emma Rivlin, with Henry Waddington in the title role and Louise Alder as Nannetta, and I Am Your Opus at the Hamburg Staatsoper (2012), a new work uniting two works by Aribert Reimann, Unrevealed and Lady Lazarus. He was also invited back to Cologne in June 2012 for the revival of Ingfried Hoffmann’s jazz children’s opera Vom Fischer und seiner Frau, of which he conducted the world premiere in 2010.

Productions during his time in Cologne from 2009 to 2011 included Respighi’s Sleeping Beauty and the acclaimed world premiere of Marius Felix Lange’s Snow White. Samuel also appeared with the Cambridge Bach Players, conducting the St John Passion and St Matthew Passion at Trinity College Chapel. Earlier engagements included Don Giovanni at the Château de Berbiguières (2008) and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with Oxford City Opera (2004). He also conducted his own opera David and Goliath, originally commissioned by New Chamber Opera in 2006 and produced for the second time at Queens’ College, Cambridge in 2008.

As an undergraduate in Oxford Samuel was already working with soloists including Andrew Skidmore and Thomas Gould. As director of Ensemble Isis, the new music group of the Oxford University Music Faculty, he was involved with various events for student composers in Oxford, including the “Max at Oxford” series in honour of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in 2004.

Samuel has consulted with Sir Mark Elder, Sir Richard Armstrong and Hugh Wolff and has attended classes with Peter Stark, Colin Metters and Benjamin Zander, supported by a London Masterclasses Bursary. He was fortunate enough to meet the late Sir Colin Davis in the year before his death and profited enormously from his advice on conducting Falstaff.