CONDUCTOR
Since making his conducting debut with the Junior Trinity Symphony Orchestra in 2006 at Blackheath Halls, conducting has rapidly grown to become one of Duncan’s foremost passions. On 14th May 2010, he conducted the LSO in a public masterclass with Valery Gergiev. He has also been selected as one of three conductors for the Lucerne Festival Academy masterclass with Pierre Boulez, 21st – 28th August 2010, and for the Sir George Solti International Conductors' Competition in Frankfurt, September 2010. He is generously supported by the Musicians Benevolent Fund.
Since June 2008 Duncan has been regularly conducting the University of Manchester Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, including concerts in Sofia and Plovdiv on their tour to Bulgaria in September 2009. Highly acclaimed performances under his directorship have included Shostakovich Symphony No. 1, Macmillan ‘The Confession of Isobel Gowdie’, Haydn Symphony No. 60 'Ill Distratto', and Janacek Sinfonietta.
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Passionate about an extraordinarily wide-ranging repertoire, Duncan has also regularly conducted Vaganza, the University’s New Music Ensemble. Performances, including at the New Music North West Festival in November 2009 in the presence of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, have included works by David Horne, Christopher Rouse, John Davies and Steve Pycroft. In February 2008, he conducted the NYO Brass ensemble in a concert of his own works at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Assistant Musical Director for Victorian Opera’s revival recording of Robin Hood by George Macfarren (1860) in February/March 2010, this season Duncan has also conducted the Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra in a rehearsal of Mahler Symphony No. 6.
Duncan has studied conducting with Andrew Morley, Peter Stark, and Mark Heron, and attended masterclasses with Sir Mark Elder, Gianandrea Noseda, Sian Edwards and Mark Shanahan.
'Duncan is hugely talented, enterprising and intelligent,
and what's more he has natural warmth and sensitivity'
Marion Friend