Musical Director

Bath Symphony Orchestra is seeking a new Musical Director from September 2025.

The orchestra 

Bath Symphony Orchestra is the only non-professional symphony orchestra in Bath. Founded in 1948, it comprises over 60 playing members, with a minimum entry requirement of grade 8 standard. Extra players are brought in for balance and strengthening as appropriate for larger scale works, for example to form expanded wind sections.

The orchestra caters for people from all walks of life, all of whom are dedicated and talented amateur musicians who aim to perform challenging symphonic programmes to a near-professional standard. Many of the players are local music teachers. We have waiting lists to join several sections of the orchestra. The Leader and the Musical Director are engaged under contract on a professional basis.

We typically perform three concerts a year in venues in and around Bath. The orchestra is thriving and financially healthy, its position strengthened in recent years by sold-out concerts and benefitting from Orchestral Tax Relief.  The orchestra is a registered charity.

The orchestra has worked with soloists including Viv McLean (piano), Craig Ogden (guitar) and BBC Young Musician finalists Annemarie Federle (horn) and Maxim Calver (cello).

Our focus is on large-scale symphonic repertoire from the 19th century onwards. Recent programmes have included symphonies by Berlioz, Borodin, Brahms, Dvorak, Mahler, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams and Walton, as well as Gershwin An American in Paris, Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Holst The Planets and ballet suites by Copland, Prokofiev, Glazunov and Tchaikovsky.  We collaborated with Bristol Choral Society to perform Mahler’s  Symphony No. 2 in 2017, and in 2025 will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Bath Bach Choir.

Additional information about the orchestra, including repertoire previously performed, forthcoming concerts, press reviews and video clips of recent rehearsals can be found at www.bathsymphony.org.uk and on social media:

www.facebook.com/BathSymphonyOrchestra

www.instagram.com/bathsymphony

The role

The key aspects of the Musical Director role are to:

  1. Deliver the highest-possible quality musical experience for players and audience with the musical forces available, working with the orchestra’s professional leader;
  2. Conduct three concerts each season (usually at weekends in November, March and June), with typically nine pre-concert day rehearsals in Bath (Tuesday evenings, one Sunday afternoon);
  3. Work with (and attend meetings of) the orchestra committee to help ensure successful organisational delivery of the concerts; to include preparing rehearsal schedules;
  4. Work with (and attend meetings of) the orchestra programming committee to select repertoire for future programmes in keeping with the musical ability and ambition of the orchestra; to include assisting with identifying suitable soloists;
  5. Act as a musical ambassador for the orchestra through contacts and the wider musical world.

The vacancy arises as Eugene Monteith, our Musical Director for 13 years, has moved to a new role at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. He and each of our previous conductors has taken the orchestra forward in its musical development and we are seeking to appoint a successor who can proactively continue this journey.  For the current season we have engaged three guest conductors, while we recruit a new Musical Director for the 2025–2026 season.

The successful candidate is likely to have experience working with both professional and amateur orchestras and conducting a wide range of orchestral repertoire. They will be able to demonstrate effective organisational skills and show an understanding of how best to motivate amateur players to enable them to perform to the highest possible standards.

The position will be reviewed annually. We are open to the possibility of appointing more than one applicant as a guest conductor for one concert each during the 2025–2026 season in the first instance.

Important note for potential applicants based outside the UK

If you are considering applying but are based outside the UK, please be aware of the following points before submitting an application.

  1. We are unable to cover the costs of travel from outside the UK. While we are a thriving orchestra with a healthy financial position, we remain a small, local community organisation with limited funds. We could not justify covering such costs.
  2. This is a very part-time role and is not a salaried post. We are not in a position to sponsor visas or work permits for anyone not already eligible to work in the UK.
  3. We expect we will be most likely to appoint a current UK resident who:
    (a) will be readily able to travel to weekly rehearsals in Bath; and
    (b) has other sources of income from current positions in the UK.
  4. Guest conductor role: in the event that we appoint guest conductors for one concert each, those guest conductors would be expected to attend most (preferably all) of the weekly rehearsals for the respective concert. This would require the conductor to be able to travel to Bath readily each week.

How to apply

Application by covering letter, CV, contact information for two referees, and preferably a link to a short video of you conducting (posted online, e.g. via YouTube). Send applications to bso.md.recruitment@gmail.com by Monday 6 January 2025.  Interviews and auditions will be held in March–May 2025. For informal enquiries, please use the same email address.

We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates, including those from groups who are under-represented in the orchestral conducting world.

For more information and to apply, please click the link Musical Director Information Pack to download the information pack from our website.