Principal Conductor, Royal Orchestral Society

Artistic Director, Roman River Music

Founder of the Cello Pilgrimage

Cellist and conductor

News

Orlando will play 17 recitals of solo Bach, Cassado and Britten Summer / Autumn 2013 - details here. Review of Orlando's last concert here and a feature in The Times here.

He will play guest principal with several leading orchestras, as well as various concerts with the LSO, Philharmonia and LPO.

A world first - Lawrence Power plays Walton violin concerto

Orlando conducts the world's leading viola player Lawrence Power in his first ever concerto appearance as violinist. Sunday 1st December 2013, St John's Smith Square, London. Jean Rigby and the London Chorus join the Royal Orchestral Society for Elgar's The Music Makers and Parry's Blest pair of Sirens, and Lawrence Power plays the Walton concerto. Tickets available from June.

Anthony Marwood plays Mozart, 5th October

On 5th October 2013 Orlando accompanies Anthony Marwood in Mozart's 3rd violin concerto and conducts Haydn's Nelson Mass with the Roman River Festival orchestra and chorus.

Peter and the Wolf April 28th

Orlando conducts a children's concert on 28th April 2013 in Stoke Newington.

Roman River Festival 21st September - 6th October

The lineup of performers at Orlando's music festival in north Essex is taking shape, with a festival debut by the Britten Sinfonia and recitals by Benjamin Grosvenor, Mark Padmore, Anthony Marwood, Tamsin Waley-Cohen and others.

Mary Plazas Strauss Four Last Songs

Orlando conducts Arnold's 5th Symphony and Strauss Four Last Songs with the wonderful Mary Plazas and the Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra on Saturday 22nd June 2013.

Publisher

Orlando's arrangements and orchestrations are now published by Norsk Musikforlag.

2013-14 Royal Orchestral Society Season Announced

The newly rejuvenated orchestra, of which Orlando is principal conductor, presents an ambitious season, with the amazing young violinist Kristine Balanas playing a rare masterpiece the Dohnanyi 2nd concerto, Bernstein's West Side Story Dances, HandsFree by Anna Meredith, Prokofiev's 5th Symphony, BBC Young Musician of the Year 2012 Laura van der Heijden, flashmobs and much more.

John Barber's cello songs

Later this year Orlando will make a recording and video of the beautiful work he commissioned from John Barber in 2012. It'll be his first youtube appearance.

Review of Orlando's Schumann / Schubert recording

Orlando Jopling does powerful, extraordinary things with this music, generating a structural momentum, emotional charge and climax that can evade even the best of performers. I haven't been so satisfied with these masterworks for a long time. A revelation. ATES ORGA

Schubert Wanderer Fantasy & Schumann Fantasie Op 17

Orlando Jopling / English Chamber Orchestra / Schubert Ensemble

Signum Classics

Orlando Jopling conducting Rachmaninov Op. 3 / English Chamber Orchestra

Lancia ad with Orlando's music

Orlando Jopling is a conductor and cellist. He has conducted the English Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, the Schönbrunn Orchestra in Vienna, and Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, as well as many amateur orchestras in the UK.

He is Principal Conductor of the 140-year-old Royal Orchestral Society in London, with whom he has conducted a wide range of the large-scale orchestral and choral repertoire. Soloists include Piers Lane, Emma Johnson, Kristine Balanas and Kyril Zlotnikov, and future plans include concertos with Lawrence Power, Benjamin Grosvenor, Tom Poster and Allan Clayton.

After graduating from the National Opera Studio in London where he won the first Leonard Hancock scholarship, Orlando Jopling co-founded the modern opera company Tête à Tête and conducted over a dozen commissioned operas and the modern world première of Vivaldi's lost opera Orlando finto pazzo as well as Die Fledermaus and other standard repertoire. He worked with Diego Masson on the three Da Ponte operas at Dartington and went on to conduct Figaro for Savoy Opera, The Merry Widow for Carl Rosa, La Scala di Seta for Independent Opera, Albert Herring for British Youth Opera and Don Giovanni, Figaro and Idomeneo in Vienna with the Schönbrunn Orchestra. More recently he founded Stanley Hall Opera and developed it into an established annual festival, conducting Falstaff, Così fan tutte, Figaro, Don Pasquale and Cenerentola. Among other repertoire he has conducted La Traviata, Don Carlos, Cav & Pag, The Pearlfishers, Paul Bunyan, A Streetcar named Desire and most recently Don Giovanni in Bahrain.

After reading music at Trinity College Cambridge, Orlando studied conducting at the Royal Academy in London. He has assisted André Previn, Sir Colin Davis, Paul McGrath and Wyn Davies at some of the major UK opera companies including Scottish Opera. He has accompanied a wide range of soloists including Sinéad O'Connor and Martha Wainwright. His music for TV has been heard on all the major UK channels, and he is artistic director of Roman River Music in coastal Essex.

Orlando studied cello with William Pleeth, Alexander Baillie and Raphael Wallfisch, and has recorded all six Bach suites for solo cello among other discs. In the last five years he has given over 80 recitals as part of his 'Cello Pilgrimage', given occasional concerto performances, and played with some of the UK's finest orchestras, among them the LSO, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra.

FEBRUARY 2011

Just back from conducting the Bahrain premier of Giovanni. Verdi's Requiem in December with the Royal Orchestral Society and London Chorus was a complete sell-out. We are lining up some thrilling concerts for the next season, including the Sea Symphony, Mahler's 4th Symphony, The Planets and Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky.

Anthony Marwood is taking my Schumann cello concerto arrangement all over the world. It will this year be performed in Slovenia, Canada and Scotland.

Tomorrow I accompany a young violinist who I think has a fantastic future - Kristine Balanas, studying with Pauk at the Academy and with a wonderful natural musicianship and phenomenal technique. She plays the Tchaikowsky concerto and I conduct William Tell overture and the Enigma Variations in my almost-farewell concert with the Kew Sinfonia.

This month I will play with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for the first time (Mahler 7), and prepare for spring cello recitals and concertos, and rehearse for Brahms' 1st Symphony and Bartok Viola Concerto with my sister on April 2nd in St John's, Smith Square.

September 2010

Just finished six days of recording sessions, putting all six Bach solo suites onto disc. Awaiting the first edit with excitement and trepidation ...

The Roman River Festival starts in a couple of weeks; four concerts are sold out already which is fantastic. Working on Sitkovetsky's string trio transcription of the Goldberg Variations to play with my sisters at the first concert.

Last week was my first piano and cello recitals for some time; Beethoven and Rachmaninov with Dominic Harlan.

LPO and Philharmonia work coming up this Autumn; meanwhile the four-month renovation on our house has suddenly turned into a ten-month project. We hope to be back in next spring.

The final two Bach concerts are next month; then I will pack up until next spring when churches get warm again. July was amazing - 19 concerts, 2,500 miles and my first ever standing ovation.

Next week is the first rehearsal for the Verdi Requiem on 5th December in St John's Smith Square, my next big conducting date. I've just found the fourth soloist - it will be a fantastic line-up.

February 2010

Moving house and touring with the Philharmonia has meant that I have had little time to write, but we are settling in; childcare is now organised for our two boys Ben and Hugo, and the planning application is finally in for the renovation we need to do to our very dilapidated house!

Apart from almost constant concerts with Philharmonia, my debut with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra and Beethoven 9th with the London Chorus and Royal Orchestral Society were highlights of the last few months.

I'm busy learning the Kodaly Sonata for a concert next month, preparing for a recording of all six Bach Suites in July after playing them in 16 recitals, and learning the scores for upcoming conducting dates among them Tchaikovsky 6 at St John's Smith Square on 21st March and my first ever Mozart 40 in June. More details to follow soon.

Please put Sunday December 5th 2010 in your diary - the Verdi Requiem with the London Chorus and Royal Orchestral Society at St John's Smith Square, London. Tickets will go on sale in October, but please let me know if you would like to reserve one as I think it is likely to sell out following the success of last year's choral concert.

April 2009

I will be conducting a full production of La Voix Humaine with Katerina Mina this September with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.

Just finished arranging Schumann's cello concerto for violin and strings, for Anthony Marwood and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, to be premiered next week.

The following week I will play my tenth concert of Bach suites in churches, and for the first time I will give four recitals in a row in various churches in the north of England. A few weeks later I will give six recitals on consecutive nights, which I have never before attempted.

In the middle of planning an exciting season with the Royal Orchestral Society - confirmed programmes in the next posting. With concerts in St John's Smith Square the orchestra has a huge potential. I will be conducting Sibelius' wonderful 6th Symphony, Beethoven's 8th and (for the first time!) Mozart's 40th with Kew Sinfonia.

Just finished my first six weeks of rehearsal and concerts with the Philharmonia, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Lorin Maazel, playing fiendishly difficult repertoire. Delighted that I will now be put on the extra list.

Now starting the mammoth task of reorchestrating Auber's Fra Diavolo for Stanley Hall Opera, which will dominate my time for the next two months along with the Bach recitals.

Very pleased to hear my music used extensively on the BBC's Victorian Farm series. One day soon I will find time to do more composing.

January 2009

The first engagement of the year was a last minute one, stepping in to conduct a rehearsal of Mahler 9 with the RPO. Forthcoming conducting dates include Kew Sinfonia on the 7th February featuring my sister Juliet playing the Bartok Viola Concerto, and the Royal Orchestral Society, who have just asked me to be their principal conductor, in St John's Smith Square on the 29th March. The concert includes the wonderful soprano Katerina Mina in the Onegin letter scene and my first performance of Sibelius' 7th Symphony.

The CD of Rachmaninov Op 18 which the ECO & I recorded last year has been released and is available from Novelbond.

Cello work this month includes a tryout of a new Joseph James composition; a string quintet version of the late Beethoven piano sonatas. We are hoping to record them later this year. January finishes with my first concert playing in the cello section of the Philharmonia, and later on this year I'll be playing the Bach cello Suites in around 30 churches (details here). 

October 2008

Just back from conducting the wonderful Irish Chamber Orchestra, performing with a group of fantastically talented actors in a great show put together by Liam Halligan and Lawrence Evans. The audience seemed to love it and we received standing ovations for all performances. Here's the Irish Examiner:

'Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream

A bewitching, beguiling night's theatre is the best way of describing the collaboration between Storytellers Theatre Company and the Irish Chamber Orchestra.

It was a magical experience. Right from the four chords that set the magical atmosphere of the overture to Puck's final soliloquy we were in a place apart, a place where theatrical and musical magic happened. Overall the production was remarkably inventive, and the seven actors who played the 20 roles were extraordinarily athletic, never allowing the pace to slacken. And of course, the shimmering, sensitive brilliance of the ICO's playing was a joy throughout.'

Vaughan Williams' fifth symphony is a revelation - I think I'm beginning to understand something of the feelings which drove him to write such a peaceful ending in the midst of WW2. I hope we can do it justice - 8th November, St Anne's Church, Kew Green.

The Royal Orchestral Society have invited me back to conduct their next concert which I'm hoping will be an opportunity to programme one of two symphonies which I've been longing to do for years - Sibelius 7th or Shostakovitch 10th.

I'm also working up to a cello recital in a couple of weeks and much looking forward to the 15 Bach recitals next year.

The Roman River Festival was a huge success, with audience figures substantially up on last year, and a definite mandate to progress forward with our artistic policy over the next few years.

August 2008

It's been a manic year, partly because we've a new addition to the family which has taken up a huge amount of energy, as well as giving us many fantastic moments and a large dose of happiness.

Last week I played the 6th Bach cello Suite for the first time, in my third Cello Pilgrimage concert. The sixth suite is a vast canvas which feels like a totally different genre compared to the others. The cellist he wrote them for must have been a wonderful musician. Six more Cello Pilgrimage concerts are planned for next year and another 7 or 8 are in the pipeline, which I'm really pleased about.

I've also just finished putting together the programme for the next Roman River Festival. We've added two new events since last year and I'm really pleased with the way it has worked out.

There have been more arrangements for Sinead O'Connor, this time for the Ulster Orchestra, and I met Sinead's fantastic band for the first time.

I've also written music for two plays. The first was Martin Crimp's The Country, in a lovely theatre above a pub called The Tabard, in West London. Writing music for the theatre was like coming home again - I have been missing collaborating with the director, and I was lucky enough to be working with one of the most intelligent, sensitive and strong directors I've come across - Simon Godwin. Watch this space for future collaborations - I hope there'll be loads. The second play was Macbeth for the Central School with a memorable and talented group of actors.

Andrew Keener has finished editing the Joseph James/Rachmaninov disc which I recorded with the ECO last year. I'm really pleased with the final result and look forward to the reaction when it is released. There's already been interest from various chamber orchestras and venues about performing it.

Other inspiring moments have been working with Rohan de Saram on Boulez, Reich and a collection of unusual and imaginative new pieces for multiple cellos, brilliantly produced work by Phil Venables of Endymion who put the project together. I accompanied Linda Thompson for her performance at the QEH - a voice and personality to die for, and a dream to work with. A special moment was performing the Fantasia Concertante by Tippett or the second time with the virtuoso string orchestra Arco Strings; the piece had matured in the few months since we had first performed it.

I also organised the building of a full-size whale (around 16 metres long) from willow withies, on my local village green, as part of a local campaign to persuade people to bring their own shopping bag. The whale was filled with plastic bags to highlight marine deaths from plastic.

I'm also working on an environmental audit for the Peer Gynt Earthly Music project planned for next year. I'm hoping this could become a blueprint for other organisations who would like to lessen their environmental impact. It is very exciting that the issues that the environmental movement have been talking about are beginning to be debated in the mainstream.

Next is something I'm hugely looking forward to - working in Dublin on a Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare and Mendelssohn) with a theatre company called Storytellers, and then with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. It will be a new production which fuses the music and text together in a way which hasn't been done before.

January 2008

Back from an exhilarating week in Naples doing an intensive italian language course.

I'll be making my debut with the Irish Chamber Orchestra this Autumn, conducting Mendelssohn's complete incidental music to Midsummer Night's Dream, in a new collaboration with the Dublin theatre company Storytellers.

I'm also reading a brilliant version of Peer Gynt written by Bathsheba Doran, which could form the basis for a new chamber version of the play with Grieg's music, to be toured next year to various UK Festivals.

There's a possibility that I could make the first ever recording of Humperdinck's music to four Shakespeare plays, which I found in the British Library last month. A publishing house in Germany is sending me copies of the original manuscripts of the full scores (the music was never published) and I'm talking to a record label and producer about putting together a recording.

The country's first carbon-neutral arts festival Earthly Music which I'm putting together with the producer Jo Paton, is taking shape and I'm bringing together English Chamber Orchestra, some fantastic performers as well as some of the most influential and inspiring leaders from the environmental world. It is incredibly fulfilling to be putting into practice something I've thought about for nearly two decades now.

I'm also putting together the programme for Roman River Music, a weekend of music in beautiful rural Essex.

Andrew Keener is editing the second disc I recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra last year, of some wonderfully fragrant Joseph James arrangements of Rachmaninov piano music. The disc has a pencilled release date of September this year.

Lastly I'm rehearsing the first John Adams work that I've ever been able to programme, with the Kew Sinfonia. It is a huge and exciting challenge which the orchestra is rising to marvellously, and learning it is one of the most intellectually satisfying processes I've undertaken for a long time.

London, December 2007

Very excitingly just had confirmation that BBC1 and ITV have both used my music this year.

Working on a version of Peer Gynt with the complete, wonderful and amazingly little-known (apart from the two orchestral suites) music by Grieg.

The first stop on my Cello Pilgrimage was a great success, raising £1,300 for the church. More concerts planned for next year. Picture above is me rehearsing in Fingringhoe church. More info on the cello pilgrimage site (see right).

20th November 2007

Back from conducting in Cork (Sinead O'Connor and orchestra), Bexhill and Chelmsford (Benjamin Grovsenor and the English Chamber Orchestra), now preparing for the first concert of my 'cello pilgrimage', playing Bach cello suites in parish churches, on 7th December in Fingringhoe, Essex. A second concert will take place next April in Suffolk. More details.

London, August 2007

Another concert with Sinead O'Connor has been confirmed for October in Cork. I'll be arranging some more of Sinead's songs for orchestra, and I'm also composing a five-minute orchestral piece to go with a short film launching a new whiskey for Irish Distillers.

Meanwhile the stuff I composed for Audio Network has now gone live on their website http://www.audiolicense.net/.

I've just recorded some arrangements of early Rachmaninov piano pieces (the Morceaux, Op 3) with the English Chamber Orchestra.

Otherwise I'm rehearsing with the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra, for concerts on the 8th September (in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire) and 9th September (St Paul's Church, Covent Garden) including the Schumann Concerto with Raphael Wallfisch.

The next London concert after that is with Kew Sinfonia on 13th October (St Anne's Church, Kew, Beethoven and Sibelius Fifth Symphonies).

Vienna, 18th July

In the middle of a heatwave, conducting Mozart and Strauss at Schonbrunn. I've been asked to conduct the Irish Chamber Orchestra next season, having worked with them last week at the Shannon Festival, where they and Anthony Marwood put on a collaboration with Sinead O'Connor.

I'm also preparing Sibelius 2nd symphony, Scriabin's Prometheus and various other bits and pieces for Music Camp next week, and the scores for the English Chamber Orchestra concert on 10th August, and I'm starting work on the next collaboration with Joseph James on some Rachmaninov pieces, to be recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra later on this year.

Reading David Cairns' wonderful account of Mozart and his operas; heart-warming and laser-sharp at the same time.

June 2007

The English Chamber Orchestra have asked me to conduct two more concerts with them this year, on 17th and 18th November. Chopin, Mendelssohn and Elgar, with Benjamin Grovesnor. Incredible virtuoso and beautiful playing a few weeks ago at air studios - I can't wat to perform with them on the concert platform.

We are also planning an ground-breaking festival for London in 2009 which will involve top classical, world and jazz virtuosi collaborating to produce some amazing concerts.

I'm arranging some of Sinéad O'Connor's wonderful new songs for the Irish Chamber Orchestra and Anthony Marwood, to be premiered on 11th July in Shannon, Ireland.

You can now buy my first conducting efforts in the recording studio from Signum Records and from all music shops. It is a Schubert/Schumann CD with the English Chamber Orchestra and Schubert Ensemble. http://www.signumrecords.com/index.htm

The CD number is SIGCD095

May 2007

ECO/Malvern

I'll make my concert debut with the English Chamber Orchestra this August in Malvern.

April 2007

Music for TV and film

I've just finished recording a second batch of underlays I composed for Audio Network TV and film music library, in Jeff Calvert's fantastic studio. Andrew Haveron (violin) and Martin Cousin (piano) were wonderful advocates. The results of the RPO session in January are already on my website (follow the link on the right and click listen) and these new tracks will be up in a few months.

March 2007



This summer I'll be back in the recording studio with the English Chamber Orchestra putting down the new version for string orchestra of Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto I've been working on with Joseph James. Sounds mad? It was one of the hardest briefs we have ever worked on, but I think the result will be excellent. Photo shows Rachmaninov working on his third concerto.

In July I have been invited back to Vienna to conduct several concerts, and will then indulge myself by spending a week in that wonderful haven of inspiration and English music-making tradition, Music Camp.

September will be a trip to my sister's chamber music festival in Kerry, Ireland, and then a concert with the Hertforshire Chamber Orchestra.

February 2007



I'm going to be working with Tom Morris (associate director at the National Theatre) exploring a staging of Beethoven's Op 131 String Quartet. Beethoven went almost completely deaf in his early thirties, and composed this piece more than fifteen years later. More on this in the summer when we'll have spent a week with some fantastic players.

January 2007


My chamber orchestra arrangement of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream music is having another outing on June 24th this year. The performance will be at Stanley Hall Opera, the summer festival I have been musical director of since it started in 2001. This time I am going to work with an actor and singer who will together tell the whole story of the Dream using Shakespeare's text.

Ruth Paton will again be creating a show based on the opera for local primary schoolchildren.

January 2007


I have just composed my first music for film and TV, which I recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra last month.

The music was commissioned by Audio Network who have asked me to write some more music for their production music library, which supplies music to all the major TV channels. The next recording session is planned for early spring.

Meanwhile I've just conducted Schubert's wonderful 9th Symphony for the first time, with a really excellent orchestra in South-West London, the Kew Sinfonia. Fiona McNaught played a superb Saint-Saens 3rd violin concerto. I'm putting together the programmes for two concerts next season at the moment.

November 2006

My first recording as conductor is due to be released in March 2007. It's with the English Chamber Orchestra with concertante solos played by members of the Schubert Ensemble.