Bertie Baigent

FESTIVAL MUSIC DIRECTOR

Bertie has been Music Director of Waterperry Opera Festival since 2017, where he has led performances ranging from mainstage operas and concerts, to children’s shows and multi-disciplinary, late night collaborations. Described as ‘a force to be reckoned with’ (Opera Magazine), he is committed to realising the expressive power of music to make opera a genre for the twenty-first century. In 2022 Bertie won the grand prix at the International Conducting Competition Rotterdam, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. Beyond Waterperry, recent performance highlights include Glyndebourne, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic, and Bruckner Orchester Linz among others. Bertie’s own opera Paradise Lost was premiered at Shipwright Theatre in London in 2022. Bertie read music at the University of Cambridge and completed a master’s in conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. In his spare time, Bertie enjoys cricket and cultivating his houseplants.