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The Scottish-born conductor and vocal coach, Tim Ribchester, obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in Music (1st Class Honours and Gibbs Prize) from Oxford University, Brasenose College in 2000; and his Master of Studies degree in Music History from Oxford University, Brasenose College in 2002. He also trained at the Royal College of Music in London, La Schola Cantorum in Paris (Certificate of High Distinction in Piano and Counterpoint, 2003), and the Advanced Conducting Academy in Bacau, Romania, in addition to conducting master-classes with several distinguished pedagogues in the USA and apprenticeships as assistant to Christofer Macatsoris and Christopher Larkin. Following intensive studies of tango performance practice in Buenos Aires he has led and collaborated on tango ensemble projects with the genre’s leading musicians on three continents, including his own acclaimed arrangements of Piazzolla’s works.
Acclaimed for his “passionate commitment to the composer and score...” “elegant sense of shape...” “perfected technique [and] a personal aesthetic vision,” Tim Ribchester is expanding an international presence as an inspiring, versatile musical leader, particularly in the field of Baroque interpretation. In Boston Tim Ribchester has directed the music of composers Joseph Summer and Mary Bichner on operatic and chamber music premieres and recordings for Albany Records and Navona Records, including collaboration with the Ulysses Quartet. Recent engagements include debuts with the Bacau Philharmonic in Romania and the Vidin Sinfonietta in Bulgaria, Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Gidon Saks’ staging for the Delphi Stummfilmkino Berlin, cover conducting Das Rheingold and Eugene Onegin at North Carolina Opera, and an ongoing residency as Coach/Conductor in Residence at Cape Town Opera, South Africa, where in 2019 he led the Young Artist Program tour of Germany and directed a subscription concert of George Frideric Handel's’s Italian vocal duets. In 2021 he prepared the cast of Cape Town Opera’s Georges Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles while continuing his mentorship of the company’s young artists. In previous seasons, the maestro has led rehearsals of the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, Baltimore and Boulder Chamber Orchestras, the Academy of Vocal Arts Chorus, and Opera Philadelphia Chorus, as well as completing a two-season contract as Music Director of Delaware County Symphony (Pennsylvania) and frequently guest conducting for the city’s Concert Operetta Theater.
Engaged pre-pandemic as recitative and continuo harpsichordist under Sir Simon Rattle at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin (2020-2021), Tim Ribchester was invited recently to join the house’s musical staff as Baroque repertoire coach and assistant conductor for the 2021-22 season. In addition to assisting Simon Rattle and the Freiburger Barockorchester on Hippolyte et Aricie he worked closely with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin under Christophe Rousset and Christopher Moulds on Orfeo ed Euridice (2021) and the celebrated Sasha Waltz production of Dido and Aeneas, and prepared Ottavio Dantone’s cast for Gluck’s Le Cinesi with Accademia Bizantina (2021). 2022 sees his Athens debut with Armonia Atenea conducting an exclusive televised concert for Parnassus Arts, leading the continuo for Staatskapelle Berlin’s J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (BWV 1046-1051) cycle under András Schiff, and for Cavalli’s L’Ormindo with Ensemble Mattiacis at Staatstheater Wiesbaden. At the Trentino Music Festival, Italy, he has conducted all of the baroque operatic and concert repertoire for the past five seasons, including fully staged productions of George Frideric Handel's Rinaldo and Alcina, L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Dido and Aeneas in collaboration with stage directors David Gately and Greg Eldridge. His original orchestration of L’incoronazione di Poppea, for an orchestra of sixteen solo players based on study of the opera’s manuscripts and existing performing editions, is scheduled for a 2022 Trentino premiere, with three scenes live-streamed by Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center in April 2021.
Formerly repetiteur at the Academy of Vocal Arts and Opera Philadelphia, Tim Ribchester is currently based in Berlin where he appears with I Porporini, Opus XX, the Staatskapelle Berlin and its Baroque ensembles as harpsichordist, and with the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Children’s Concert program as pianist, as well as maintaining a private vocal coaching studio with many high-profile international clients, and giving online master-classes for organizations including the Premiere Opera Vocal Arts Institute and the Tanglewood Institute. His recital collaborators have included Julianne Baird, Ian Bostridge, Paquito D’Rivera, Pedro Giraudo, Johannes Held, and Ricardo Morales, and he is a featured soloist on the soundtrack of Park Chan-Wook’s critically acclaimed 2016 feature film The Handmaiden, and in duo with Cassia Harvey on the album "The Russian Cello", as well as contributing song selections on Navona Records’ recent album “Who is Sylvia?”. |
