Opera Scotland

Jonathon Cole-Swinard Suggest updates

Jonathon Swinard (2017-19).

Pianist & conductor.

Jonathon Swinard is the Artistic Director of the Scottish Opera Young Company and the Chorus Master at Scottish Opera.  He is also the Head of Music at Garsington Opera and Artistic Director of that company's Alvarez Young Artists' Programme.  He works as a visiting vocal coach at several UK music colleges, including RCS in Glasgow.

He studied at Oxford University and in London at the Guildhall School. His training as a conductor was with Siân Edwards at Dartington.  He began his career at Scottish Opera as the company’s first Emerging Artist Répétiteur.   Jonathon spent six years as a member of Faculty for the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto and was also at the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar.  From 2013 to 2014 he held the Alexander Gibson Choral Conducting Fellowship with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus. From 2014 to 2016 he was Solorepetitor and Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater in Nuremberg where he conducted opera, ballet and musical theatre.

In 2016 he returned to Scottish Opera as Chorus Master and Répétiteur.   Productions and performances he worked on include Verdi (La traviata),  Leoncavallo (Pagliacci),  Puccini (Le villi, La bohème),  Tchaikovsky (Eugene Onegin, Iolanta),  Rachmaninov (Aleko, Francesca da Rimini) and Dove (Flight). He was also Conductor/Pianist for the Opera Highlights tours in 2017 and Autumn 2018.   For the Young Company he conducted Orfeo ed Euridice.