Robert King (conductor)

Robert King (conductor)

Robert King (born 27 June 1960 in Wombourne) is an English conductor and harpsichordist. As a youth, he was a member of the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge. He read music at the University of Cambridge, and in 1980, while still a student, founded the period instrument orchestra The King's Consort.

He has worked as a conductor with orchestras in Europe and North America, including the Seattle, Houston, Oregon, Detroit, Atlanta, Minnesota, and NDR Symphony Orchestras, the Munich Radio Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, the Orchestra della RAI Torino, Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi di Milano, and the Orquesta e Coro Ciudad de Madrid. He has written and presented for the BBC, been artistic director of music festivals in Sweden, Germany, and the UK, and contributed to the scores of a number of Hollywood films including Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek 2, Flushed Away, and The Da Vinci Code.

King’s career suffered a setback in 2007 when he was convicted of indecent assault but concurrent with his return to the podium in 2009 he continued his musical scholarship first evidenced by his monograph on Purcell (published in 1994 to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the composer’s death). In 2010 and 2011 two substantial volumes of English church music edited by King were published by Oxford University Press joining nearly 100 other works he has edited from the Baroque and Classical eras. In 2009 he was appointed artistic director of the musical charity Vivat Music Foundation

In his role as artistic director of The King's Consort, King has made some 95 recordings, mostly for Hyperion Records. In 2011-12, alongside UK performances including Wigmore Hall and Wilton’s Music Hall, The King’s Consort performed under King’s direction at major European festivals and venues. These included the Lucerne Festival, Theater an der Wien, Auditorio Nacional Madrid, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Palau de la Musica Barcelona, Leipzig Gewandhaus and Flanders Festival. From 2013 King will record for the new Vivat label.