Still remarkably youthful himself, Chromatica Orchestra’s new chief conductor Oliver Cope sees their role as developing the next generation of musical talent

Oliver Cope

Oliver Cope was recently appointed as chief conductor of Chromatica Orchestra, making him one of youngest conductors in the country to hold a titled position with a professional orchestra.

He was a prize-winner at the 2026 Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, where he was awarded the BR-KLASSIK studio production prize with the Bamberger Symphoniker. He was also First Prize winner of both the Kussewitzky Competition and the International Athens Conducting Competition. Oliver read music at Clare College, Cambridge, and then studied with Sian Edwards at the Royal Academy of Music, and with Martyn Brabbins at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Chromatica Orchestra made its debut at Battersea Arts Centre in October 2024. Formerly Bath Festival Orchestra, the ensemble was relaunched as Chromatica by its founding artistic director, conductor Peter Manning, with a new base in South London. Regularly performing in Battersea, the orchestra has developed close partnerships with the Music in Secondary Schools Trust and Newham’s Bobby Moore Academy.

Chromatica Orchestra was founded to nurture the next generation of musical talent, bringing together outstanding emerging orchestral players with brilliant soloists, and Oliver is its first chief conductor. He regards his role as ‘someone to steer the ship’, and his ideas for the orchestra align with those of the players and management. Chromatica is a new orchestra, and London is not short of excellent orchestras. But for Oliver, Chromatica has a distinct reason to exist. It is focused on where the players are in their careers. He feels that there is a gap in London when it comes to early career players. He wants Chromatica to be free to look at ways to do things differently, whether it is the way they play programmes or experimenting with venues. Chromatica’s regular concert series at Battersea Arts Centre is already a step away from traditional venues.

The orchestra’s players are in the 25 to 35 age range, and Oliver finds the quality of their playing to be exceptional. Already some players have gone on to win positions with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Oliver sees rehearsals as being collaborative, and he comments that conductors who shut down comment from the first desks and players are missing a trick. He takes that approach everywhere, with Chromatica being no different in that respect to another orchestra. That the players are all at the same stage of their careers brings a different edge to the orchestra’s performances he feels.

Chromatica Orchestra [Photo: Monika Jakubowska]

As chief conductor, his first programme with the orchestra is on 9 October 2026, Surface & Shadow, at Battersea Arts Centre when they are playing Bernard Herrmann‘s Psycho Suite, Korngold’s Violin Concerto (with Sarang Seohyun Kim) and Shostakovich’s Symphony No 9. The programme started from the Korngold, and Oliver comments that their soloist Sarang Seohyun Kim is amazing. She turns 18 on the day of the concert and he feels that she will be a star in ten years time. Korngold’s concerto, though a concert work, is imbued in the film-music world so Oliver thought it would be apt to pair it with film music: Herrmann’s Psycho Suite for string orchestra, which is not often given in concert. Oliver finds the piece exciting and feels that the music is very evocative even if you have not seen the film. And Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 was written the same year as Korngold’s concerto. Korngold wrote only film music during the war, so his concerto was his very deliberate return to concert works. Similarly, Shostakovich’s symphony was his first post-war work and he did write music for films, which makes for interesting comparisons with Korngold.

For Oliver’s second programme with the orchestra on 26 November, Attract & Resist, they are joined by accordion player Ryan Corbett. Their programme includes Daniel Soley‘s Accordion Concerto, which was written for Corbett and which he premiered with the Britten Sinfonia. Oliver suggests the concert has a tango theme without being tango, avoiding stereotypes, so also on the programme is Osvaldo Golijov‘s Last Round (described by Oliver as a piece no-one has heard of) and some Piazzolla. To complement this is Poulenc’s Sinfonietta, neither Latin nor tango but very colourful and a bit more well-known.

Oliver wants Chromatica to find amazing young talent as soloists and he describes Ryan Corbett as doing amazing things with his instrument. Corbett was the first ever accordionist to be on the BBC New Generation Artist scheme.

Oliver Cope [Photo: Amanda Protidou / TSSO]

Growing up, Oliver played the harp and this was the sort of musician he thought he would be. As a teenager he played a lot in amateur orchestras alongside adults. He became interested in what conductors did and managed to persuade orchestras to let him have a go at conducting. The way he describes it, it sounds as if he bartered his time playing the harp against a session conducting a rehearsal, in lieu of payment. And age 16, he set up his own orchestra with his friends. He read music at Cambridge, but he describes his time there as being a bit of a playground for conductors. His activities included a staging of Bizet’s Carmen and premiering new commissions by composers who were his friends. Perhaps more interested in what he wanted to achieve, he only had his first conducting lesson when he was 22.

As well as recent orchestral conducting activities and competitions, another thread to Oliver’s life is opera. He conducted both HGO and British Youth Opera this year. In April 2026 he conducted Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia for HGO at Jackson’s Lane Theatre [see review on Seen & Heard], having conducted Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin for them in 2024 [see review on Seen & Heard]. This summer he conducted Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for British Youth Opera at Battersea Arts Centre, Chromatica Orchestra’s home, [see review on The Guardian]

He finds that opera is important to him as a musician: he always learns something, and working with singers teaches you something. He is interested to find out if he might do something similar with Chromatica Orchestra as this would be a different skill for the orchestra. With BYO’s The Rake’s Progress the orchestra was Sinfonia Smith Square and this was the orchestra’s only opera production this year. Looking ahead he opines that two opera productions per year would be nice.

Oliver Cope [Photo: Reinhold Eckert]

This season he will be returning to Bamberg to conduct the Bamberger Symphoniker for a recording, this arose out of Oliver’s success at the orchestra’s 2026 Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition. Oliver has taken part in several competitions with an enviable degree of success. When I ask his thoughts on competitions in general he says that for him they are certainly helpful, but as for being enjoyable, he is not so sure! Also, getting into them can be tricky; there were years when he applied and didn’t get in. For the bigger competitions, you might have five hundred people applying (via video) for around 20 or so places.

He comments that competitions can be brutal. In real life you have two or three rehearsals and then the concert (and perhaps more than one concret date), giving you time to understand the orchestra. In a competition your time in the first round is liable to be a mere 15 minutes. Your response has to be immediate and it is very much an artificial situation. You spend months learning a pile of scores, do your fifteen minutes and then that’s it. He has found competitions to be a necessary evil, and has a couple more that he is going to do. However, he has learned a lot: he feels that any situation that is uncomfortable can be beneficial—you learn.

He admits that he is still in the early stages of his career, so his diary for the next year is still somewhat in flux (Chromatica Orchestra apart). But he is grateful to have a fairly full diary to look forward to.

Full details of Oliver Cope’s concerts from his website,  and Chromatica Orchestra’s forthcoming season on their website.