Profile
Graham Lea-Cox
Conductor
Graham Lea-Cox was born in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and began his musical career as a boy-chorister in the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. After completing High School in Zimbabwe, he entered the Royal College of Music in London as an Exhibitioner, to study conducting (with Norman Del Mar, London), violoncello (Antonio Butler, RCM) and organ (Richard Popplewell, RCM and later André Marchal, France), before going on a scholarship to Oxford University.
In opera he trained as a repetiteur at the RCM and at the English National Opera.On graduating from Oxford he was appointed Artistic Director of the Texas Boys' Choir (Dallas, USA). As Artistic Director and conductor of this major US secular Choir School and its professional Touring Choir, he made five trans-national tours of the US, as well as tours to Japan and Hong Kong. Whilst in the USA he prepared choruses for several major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony and the New York City Opera (in Los Angeles)
Conducting debuts were at Carnegie Hall and the San Antonio International Music Festival in the USA, in which country he has directed performances at many of the major concert halls. His London orchestral debut, conducting the Orchestra of St. John's, Smith Square, was followed by an invitation to work as assistant to Arnold Östman in Italy and a subsequent operatic conducting debut in Sweden, with Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Studentships in Prague and at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam (Wagner, Die Walküre), led to an invitation from the Netherlands Opera as an assistant to Chief Conductor, Hartmut Haenchen, in Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. He was also Artistic Director of the first UK WARCHILD Festival (1993) at the Royal Festival Hall, London.
Opera Coaching: Graham has coached several major opera singers in preparation for their operatic and concert engagements and for some years worked closely with the American mezzo-soprano, Kathleen Kuhlmann.
In the UK he has directed the English Performing Arts Ensemble, which he founded with members of London’s leading orchestras, and the Elizabethan Singers of London - one of London’s longest established Chamber Choirs. Together they have performed on London's South Bank (Royal Festival Hall; Queen Elizabeth Hall) toured in Europe and the USA.
In Europe, Scandinavia, North America, Mexico and Africa he has since then conducted and performed widely, in recording, radio broadcast and concert. In Europe he has conducted the WDR (West German Radio) Symphony Orchestra (Köln) in several seasons, the Hanover Band in the UK (five recordings on Universal Records), the Orchestra da Camara di Firenze in Italy, the Goteborg Opera in Sweden. In South Africa he has conducted over several seasons the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded for broadcast on the SABC.Directing the Hanover Band one of the UK’s leading period instrument orchestras, his world-premiere recordings on ASV (now Sanctuary Classics/Universal) have received outstanding international acclaim and a nomination for the Classical Grammy Awards in the USA.
As a scholar he has become noted for his pioneering editions of works by 18th century British composers made from autographs in the UK and the USA. In Sweden, he researched the Gustavian manuscripts of the works of Gluck at the invitation of Arnold Ostman, for the cycle of Gluck operas at the Royal Drottningholm Theatre in Stockholm. Graham has been a ‘British Council Artist in residence’ to Sweden, the Czech Republic and Zimbabwe.
Current Repertoire:
Graham's repertoire over recent seasons has included the orchestral and Symphonic repertoire of Mexico and Latin and Central America, solo concertos, Operatic and Symphonic works of Dmitri Shostakovitch, Sergei Prokofiev, Britten, Tippett, Takemitsu, Janáček, Finzi, Dallapiccola, Schoenberg, Webern, Debussy, Ravel, Faure, Delius, Dukas, Elgar, Glazunov, Rossini, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Haydn as well as his own critical editions of British Symphonies and works by Handel, Arne, Boyce, Clementi, SS Wesley and William Sterndale Bennett, Vaughan William and Walton. With the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra he has conducted and recorded for broadcast the South African premières of several major orchestral works by leading contemporary South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr. In Mexico he has conducted a series of concerts celebrating the 20th century Mexican Symphonist Pablo Moncayo and in December 2012 he has been invited to be President and Chief Conductor of the first International Chamber Music and Chamber Orchestra Festival in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco State.
Educational Work:
Encouraging young people in their study and appreciation of music is expressed through his work as often as possible. In the UK through the 1990s, he conceived and directed a 5 year Educational project, Explorations, with the English Performing Arts Ensemble and, as Artistic Director and Conductor, directed events at the Royal Festival and Queen Elizabeth Halls, London. From this work a national UK charity was established, the English Performing Arts Educational Trust, dedicated to assisting young people, professionals and the public at large towards a greater common appreciation of the Performing Arts. He has since directed similar projects internationally in the USA and for the British Council in Zimbabwe.
ln South Africa he has given master classes and lectured on Performance Practice and Contemporary music at the University of Southern Africa (UNISA), The University of Pretoria, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, as a keynote speaker at the South African Music Teachers Conference and as a guest lecturer at the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (AFDA), where he will Direct a project in 2012 for post-graduate film composers and film Directors in collaboration with Creative Beetroot, Mexican film composer Miguel Almaguer (Chair of Media Music, AFDA) and the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and its Academy Cadet training orchestra.
In Mexico he has lectured at the Universities of Monterrey and Saltillo and the Escuela Superior de Musica y Danza de Monterrey and worked with Mexican Youth Orchestras in Nuevo Leon (Monterrey) and Jalisco (Guadalajara).
November 2011