Conductors
Matthew Rogers
Conductor: UCL Symphony Orchestra, UCL Symphony Chorus, University College Opera
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 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 at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
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.
He conducted for the Royal Ballet on their summer tours in 2015 and 2016 and as Chorus Master worked extensively for the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Winslow Hall Opera and the Tonbridge Philharmonic. He has recently been appointed to the faculty of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
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.
Tristan Weymes
Conductor: UCL Chamber Choir
Tristan is a professional freelance conductor based on South London. He studies on the MA Choral Conducting course at the Royal Academy of Music under Patrick Russill, and runs choirs including the UCL Chamber Choir, is Deputy Artistic Director and Choral Lead of music outreach charity Elysium, and is determined to provide opportunities to musicians of all backgrounds. He is also Musicianship/Aural Lead and Choral Director at Youth Music Centre, and Director of Music at St Mary’s, Merton Park, where he trains the choristers and parish choir, alongside his work as an Assistant Leader at the London Youth Choirs.
Helen Chen
Conductor: UCL Concert Band
Helen is a UCL alumni and was an active member of UCL Music Society all four years of her degree. She served multiple committee roles for Music Society during her time in UCL, including publicity officer, orchestra manager and as the assistant producer of the 2019 UCOpera production of the British staged première of Smetana’s Libuše. Helen has been conducting UCL concert band since 2021 and is excited to return for this academic year.
Helen started playing the flute when she was 8 years old and graduated with an advanced level exam in flute playing and music theory from Reykjavík College of Music at the age of 18 whilst also attending Reykjavík Junior College. Helen performed as a soloist with Iceland Symphony Orchestra when she was 12 years old and has participated in multiple orchestras on both flute and piccolo. These include Iceland Symphony Youth Orchestra, Reykjavik College of Music Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Youth, Orchestra Nouveau and UCL Symphony Orchestra throughout her degree. She is currently the principal flute of Amati Orchestra, having their Cadogan Hall debut summer 2023 with Mahler’s second symphony. She is also a member of the Icelandic choir in London.
Helen graduated from UCL in 2020 with an integrated Masters degree in chemistry. She currently works in biotechnology conducting clinical studies for in-vitro diagnostic medical devices.
Elizabeth McEneaney
Conductor: UCL String Orchestra
Hi! I’m Lizzie and I’m really looking forward to conducting the UCL string orchestra this term. I’m currently studying Russian and Spanish at uni, but on the side love to get involved in all things musical in London!
I started studying at Junior Guildhall in 2007, adding conducting lessons to the mix in my final few years there alongside violin and piano. Quickly realising how passionate I was about conducting, I decided to found an orchestra of London conservatoire students in 2019 having being encouraged by conductors I met whilst playing in various UK youth orchestras, and since then have conducted both my own and other orchestras in concerts and recordings spanning from London to the Czech Republic.
I’m also a violinist and play in a couple of London youth orchestras, alongside being a dedicated member of UCL Music Society 😎
Past conductors
Charles Peebles
Principal Conductor, UCL Symphony Orchestra, UCL Symphony Chorus, UCL Chamber Choir
Musical Director, University College Opera 2002-2022
Charles Peebles studied at Cambridge University, the Guildhall and as a Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood. He has conducted, amongst others, the City of London Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, English Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Nash Ensemble, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Symphony Orchestras. In 1992 he won 1st Cadaques International Conducting Competition in Spain and has since conducted virtually every major Spanish orchestra including Orquesta Nacional de Espana. He has conducted extensively throughout Europe including engagements with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra in Vienna, Bruckner’s 9th Symphony with the Latvian National Symphony in Riga, concerts in Turkey including with the Presidential Symphony and concerts with the National Symphony of Mexico. He has recorded for Hyperion and Largo records.
In the field of opera he conducted many productions of a wide repertoire for English Touring Opera, Holland Park Opera and Broomhill, Mozart’s ‘Cosi fan tutte’ for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and a critically acclaimed series of Rossini opera productions for Garsington Opera. Charles conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 2001 returning for the same work in 2002. He made his Far East debut in a televised concert with the distinguished tenor Jose Cura. Since 2001 Charles has been Music Director of University College Opera where he has conducted operas by Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Weber Verdi, Rimsky-Korsakov and Offenbach plus the British Premieres of Hahn’s ‘Ciboulette’, Dvorak’s ‘Vanda’, Lalo’s ‘Fiesque’, the first British Staging of Bloch’s ‘Macbeth’, the first staging since the eighteenth century of Rameau’s ‘Acante et Cephise’.
Other current projects include Hansel and Gretel, following a successful Carmen for the St Magnus Festival, and conducting the BBC Singers. He was created an Honorary Fellow of UCL in 2012.
After over 20 years as director of music at UCL, Charles Peebles left the Society in 2022. We thank him for his dedicated work throughout his time at UCL and his key role in restoring music to UCL post-pandemic.
David Drummond
1992-2001
A highlight for the company under the directorship of David Drummond was UCOpera's world premiere staging of César Franck's Hulda in its complete form. The 1994 production used a score which Drummond restored from the composer's original manuscript. Drummond's last performance as the company's Director coincided with its 50th anniversary, the 2001 UK premiere of Aulis Sallinen's Kullervo.
Christopher Fifield
1981-1991
Howard Williams
Guy Woolfenden
George Badacsonyi
1963-1976
Anthony Addison
1951-1953
Founder of University College Opera
