With an “incisive, lively, inventive” (Baroque News) vision and approach to the baroque and Classical soundworld, and a dedication to breathing life back into long-forgotten repertoire, British conductor David Bates has established a distinctive and compelling career across the UK, Europe and beyond, attracting acclaim for “superbly engaging, theatrically thrilling” performances (Gramophone) of “real beauty, velvety sonorities, and heady gracefulness” (Der Tagesspiegel), “intense, entertaining, full of humour but also depth.” (rbb24)
David opened the 2024/25 season conducting Stefan Herheim’s new production of Idomeneo with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in his debut at Theater an der Wien, and the season included concerts with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opéra de Rouen, and his debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in Die Zauberflote. In the 2025/26 season he conducts Handel’s Giustino at the Royal Opera and Ballet Covent Garden’s Linbury Theatre, leads performances of Messiah with the Bournemouth Symphony, Idomeneo with Boston Baroque and returns to Opéra de Rouen for Agrippina. With La Nuova Musica he continues a regular series of appearances at Wigmore Hall and conducts tours of Mozart’s C minor Mass and Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, and further plans include returns to the Grange Festival and his debut at Garsington Opera in 2027.
Following a very successful debut at the Komische Oper in a new production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice by Damiano Michieletto in 2022, he has since returned there to conduct Handel’s Saul and Hercules. Elsewhere he has conducted Handel’s Alcina for Glyndebourne Festival with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Alcina and Monteverdi’s Orfeo for Staatsoper Hannover; Handel’s Serse with Opéra de Rouen Normandie; Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea at The Grange Festival and Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists while, on the concert platform, he has explored Mozart and Beethoven with the Munich Symphony Orchestra. Directing from the harpsichord, David’s previous opera productions have included Rinaldo for Glyndebourne on Tour; Cesti’s Orontea at the Innsbrucker Festwochen; Cavalli’s La Calisto for Cincinnati Opera; Iphigénie en Tauride at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon and Vivaldi’s Farnace with the Tony Award-winning theatre director Garry Hynes at the Spoleto Festival in the United States.
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, David Bates initially embarked on a professional singing career before turning to directing/conducting, and founded La Nuova Musica in 2007, dedicated to the music of the Baroque and Classical periods. A recent highlight was a semi-staged performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the 2022 BBC Proms, described as “a superbly evocative night” in The Times and “a highly shaped, highly articulated performance, a musical tour de force that filled the hall” in Opera Today. Together with La Nuova Musica, David has made numerous award-winning recordings for Pentatone and Harmonia Mundi. Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice on Pentatone, featuring Iestyn Davies and Sophie Bevan, was shortlisted for a 2020 Gramophone Award, and their CDs for Harmonia Mundi received ‘Le choix de France Musique’ and Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’.
