Opera Scotland

Derek Clark Suggest updates

Born Glasgow.

Scottish conductor, repetiteur and arranger.

Derek Clark studied in Glasgow at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama then at the University of Durham and the London Opera Centre.  He joined Welsh National Opera's staff as a repetiteur in 1977. His career developed steadily as he worked on a wide range of productions, conducting many performances during twenty years with the company. His conducting debut in 1981 was with Handel's Tamerlano.

In 1997 he joined Scottish Opera as Head of Music, since when he has been a regular influence on opera in Scotland.   He selected the programmes for thirteen years of the Essential Scottish Opera touring groups, as well as creating reduced orchestrations for several of the medium scale Scottish Opera on Tour productions, including Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Die Fledermaus, Carmen, Orpheus in the Underworld, The Elixir of Love and Rodelinda. He also conducted several of these.

He conducts several full-scale performances with Scottish Opera every season. He conducted the premiere of Rory Boyle's Kaspar Hauser at the RSAMD, and introduced all three seasons of Scottish Opera's new Five:15 operas. At the Edinburgh International Festival he led the premiere of The Lady from the Sea (Craig Armstrong) and the first Scottish performances of Clemency (James MacMillan). 

Since 2011 he has been Musical Director of Dundee Choral Union, conducting a varied concert repertoire at the Caird Hall ranging through Bach, Schütz, Mendelssohn, Elgar, Gretchaninov, Vaughan Williams and Mathias. Many of these have been with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera.

In addition to his work as conductor, arranger and composer, he performs as an accompanist, with groups such as Opera Alba and Coro Alba.

Click on www.classicalmusiciansscotland.com to learn more about Derek, or contact daisy@classicalmusiciansscotland.com.

Last revised December 2018.