BIO

British musician Matt Scott Rogers recently completed five seasons on the conducting staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, latterly as a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. Future and recent engagements include returns to Malmö Opera for The Nutcracker; Chelsea Opera Group for Oberto; The Royal Danish Opera for Seven Deadly Sins, Manualen and The Handmaid’s Tale as assistant; and, as composer, the premiere of his song cycle Honest Skin at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is Music Director of the UCL Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, UC Opera, and is on faculty at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance.

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In March 2019 he conducted the first performance of Boito’s Mefistofele at the Southbank Centre to critical acclaim: 

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“…conducted with missionary zeal by an alumnus of the RO’s young artists’ programme, Matthew Scott Rogers galvanised both the orchestra and chorus…" (Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times) 

 

“Rogers had the measure of the work’s complexities, and his interpretation had lyrical warmth and dramatic cogency” (Tim Ashley, The Guardian). 

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In the 2019/20 season he joined the music staff of Det Kongelige Teater and returned to the Royal Opera House (La Boheme), Grange Park Opera (Falstaff & La Boheme), the Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra (Don Giovanni), and Sofia National Opera (Madama Butterfly).

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Rogers came to international attention in July 2015 when he made his Lincoln Center debut conducting the New York City Ballet Orchestra. This was followed by a period with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as a member of the prestigious International Conductor Development Program. Other orchestras he has conducted include the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Orchestra of Opera North, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Tokyo City Philharmonic, Osaka Symphony, Dubrovnik Symphony, Berlin Sinfonietta, Southbank Sinfonia and the Estonian Festival Orchestra. 

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As assistant conductor at the Royal Opera House he worked with Andris Nelsons, Antonio Pappano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marc Minkowski, Emmanuel Villaume and Plácido Domingo, among others; he has also assisted Vladimir Jurowski at the London Philharmonic. He conducted for the Royal Ballet on their summer tours and as Chorus Master worked extensively for the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Winslow Hall Opera and the Tonbridge Philharmonic Society.

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Writing from his studio in Cornwall, Rogers is rapidly establishing a reputation as an exciting young composer. In 2018 his Scarpia Tänze was premiered by members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, followed by a short set of songs for the acclaimed soprano Jennifer Davis. In 2022, new works include a song cycle for countertenor Patrick Terry in Crush Room recital series at the Royal Opera House. 

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Rogers is a passionate advocate of music education, having collaborated with Newham Music on their large-scale project, the Newham Philharmonic, which took a full symphony orchestra into the schools of London’s poorest borough and culminated with concerts at the Barbican and Southbank Centre. He worked regularly with the Learning and Participation department at the Royal Opera House, conducting the ROH Youth Chorus and hosting a YouTube series instructing teachers in conducting technique.

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Rogers studied conducting with Neeme and Paavo Järvi, and was a member of Jorma Panula’s acclaimed class at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He first read music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, before continuing at the University of Glasgow, the Sibelius Academy and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was awarded a Leverhulme Studentship and was a Churchill Fellow. 

 

Matt Scott Rogers is kindly supported by the Leverhulme Trust, the International Opera Awards Foundation, Help Musicians UK, the Radford Trust, the John Lewis Partnership and received a Guildhall School Scholarship.