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Kenneth Woods

Conductor Kenneth Woods is often active in Britain and serves as the principal conductor and artistic director of the English Symphony Orchestra. He is also a cellist who has recorded with his own string trio, an educator, a composer, and a popular blogger. Woods was born in the U.S. in 1968. He studied conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Woods went on for further conducting studies with David Zinman, Leonard Slatkin, Jorma Panula, and Gerhard Samuel. Zinman chose him as a fellow in the first class of the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, Colorado, in 2000, and the following year, Slatkin selected him as one of four students at the Kennedy Center National Conducting Institute in Washington, D.C. By that time, Woods had already begun his professional career as conductor of the Dayton Philharmonic in Ohio and the Grande Ronde Symphony and Oregon East Symphony in Oregon. He taught conducting, strings, and chamber music at Eastern Oregon University from 1999 to 2002. Woods' recording career took off when he became active in Britain in the late 2000s decade. In 2009, he was named principal guest conductor of the Orchestra of the Swan, and with that group and the Northern Sinfonia, he made the first complete recordings of the symphonies of Hans Gál, issued by the Avie label; that label has also released recordings of Woods' own works. Woods' arrangements for orchestra include those of the Brahms Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 26, and Viktor Ullmann's String Quartet No. 3. The latter composer was one of those grouped by the Nazi regime in Germany under the heading Entartete Musik, and Woods has championed those composers in performance. He has been active as a guest conductor in both the U.S. and Britain, appearing with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, among other ensembles. He co-founded the Ensemble Epomeo string trio and, with that group, recorded trios by Gál and Hans Krása. In 2013, Woods was named the principal conductor and artistic director of the English Symphony Orchestra; he remained in that position as of the early 2020s. He also became the artistic director of the Colorado MahlerFest in 2015 and continues to serve there. Woods has recorded frequently with the English Symphony Orchestra, leading the group on releases by Signum Classics and Nimbus Alliance. On the latter, he released an album of works by Philip Sawyers, a composer he has championed, in 2023. By that time, Woods' recording catalog comprised some 30 items. He writes the blog "A View from the Podium" and has written program notes for various organizations.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography

30 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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