Animated, flowing, compact, transparent, engaging and committed.
Le Nazione, Italy
Animated, flowing, compact, transparent, engaging and committed.
Le Nazione, Italy
CONDUCTOR
"One of the most versatile conductors of our time."
Hessische Zeitung, Germany
Paul Goodwin is renowned for his historically informed interpretations of music of all periods, his wide repertoire and his interest in contemporary music. He has a great passion for incorporating period style within the traditional orchestral world and creating unusual and dynamic programs. He has been for 11 years Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Carmel Bach Festival in California and is Principal Guest Conductor of Capella Aquileia in Germany. He is Director of the Historical Performance Programme at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid.
Paul has a wide symphonic repertoire conducting orchestras throughout the world, such as the BBC Philharmonic, the Hallé Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra in the UK; the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Seattle Symphony, Utah Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in the US; the Belgium National, Spainish National, Taiwan National, Hungarian National Opera and Polish National Orchestras, the Rotterdam, Helsinki, Auckland, Melbourne, Seoul and Royal Stockholm Philharmonics and the Bayerischer Rundfunk, SWR (Saabrucken), NDR (Hannover), MDR (Leipzig), WDR (Cologne) Rundfunkorchesters along with the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin and the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig.
In opera, Paul’s successes have included Cosi fan Tutte at the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen, Gluck Iphigenie en Tauride at the Komische Oper Berlin, Britten Rape of Lucretia at the Teatro Real Madrid, Handel's Jeptha at Welsh National Opera and Orlando at both Scottish Opera and Opera Australia. In Carmel USA he has conducted Mozart’s Idomeneo, Magic Flute, Cosi fan Tutti, Purcell Dido and Aeneas and Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti.
In the 2023 season Paul is conducting the Polish National Orchestra (Purcell, Elgar, Handel, Mark Anthony Turnage, Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel), Krakow Philharmonic (Neilson, Haydn, Skrowaczewski, Szymanowski and Stravinsky complete Firebird music), the Warsaw Chamber Opera in a 1760's program, the Israel Camerata (Mozart, Haydn & CPE Bach with pianist Robert Levin), the Reina Sofia Baroque Orchestra Madrid (Couperin, Telemann and Purcell), Rheinische Philharmonic (Schubert, Mozart & Mendelssohn 4th) and Handel's opera Radamisto in Mainz.
For 11 years Paul was the Associate Conductor of the Academy of Ancient Music with whom he toured extensively and made recordings of Schutz choral music, Mozart’s singspiel Zaide and two discs of music by John Tavener, commissioned for the AAM. Three of these CDs were nominated for Grammy (USA) and Gramophone (UK) awards. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra for 6 years, collaborating with artists such as Kiri Te Kanawa, Joshua Bell, Maria João Pires, Mstislav Rostropovich and Magdalena Kozena. He has recorded CDs of Strauss, Hartmann, Handel’s Riccardo Primo and Athalia, and a highly acclaimed CD of Elgar's Nursery Suite for Harmonia Mundi. He has collaborated with the Münchner Rundfunk Orchester on two discs for Sony, one of Prokovief Peter and the Wolf paired with Paddington Bear, and the other with violinist Charlie Siem, called "Underneath the stars”.
Paul has a strong following on Spotify with his most popular track : Sospiri Op.70 by Edward Elgar listened to over 13 million times. There are at present 23 of his albums available to listen to on Spotify.com/albums/paulgoodwin
In 2007, Paul Goodwin was awarded the Handel Honorary Prize of the City of Halle (Saale) in recognition of his extraordinary services to performances of works by George Frederic Handel.
In 2021, a Music Fellowship was set up in honour of Paul Goodwin's 11 years tenure at the Carmel Bach Festival, in collaboration with CSUMB (California State University Monterey Bay).
In 2022, presented by Queen Sofia of Spain, he received the Plaque of the Reina Sofia School of Music as Professor of the Historical Performance Practice Programme.
