Paul Bateman studied piano, organ, singing, and ‘cello at the Guildhall School of Music in London, and began his musical life as an accompanist, chamber musician, and opera repetiteur. He started his conducting career in the West End with the shows Barnum, Singing in the Rain, The Phantom of the Opera, and Carmen Jones. In 2018, he was appointed as the Principal Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra. He has also conducted recordings with the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, London Symphony, Munich Symphony, Vienna Symphony (for José Carreras) and City of Prague Philharmonic orchestras and has given concerts with the BBC Concert, Malmo Symphony, Seville Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Dallas Symphony, Russian National (at the Bolshoi Theatre), Tokyo Philharmonic and Ulster orchestras. Paul Bateman conducted Lesley Garrett’s album ‘A North Country Lass’ which went straight to number one in the Classical Charts. He also conducted and orchestrated her album A Soprano In Hollywood and his orchestrations also appear on many of her television programmes. He conducts film music concerts all over the world and has recorded many film music albums for Silva Screen Records in Prague.
He has conducted over thirty albums of film music including two volumes of Hitchcock film scores, albums of the music of Bernard Herrmann, Maurice Jarre, John Williams and Ennio Morricone, and collections of Korngold, Steiner and Tiomkin. His total discography now includes over seventy recordings, many of which feature daily on Classic FM. With the Philharmonia Orchestra he has conducted two albums of the music of John Jeffreys.
Paul Bateman’s association with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra goes back several years, having regularly conducted their ‘Filmharmonic’ and ‘Film Music Gala’ concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, many concerts in the UK and a tour of Korea. He also made two recordings of Filmharmonic with them and for Sony Classics, recordings with violinists Eijin Nomura and Vanessa-Mae. For Sarah Brightman he has conducted recordings of his own arrangements with the LSO and RPO and gives concerts with her all over the world. In 2009 and 2010 Paul conducted summer concerts in Malta for tenor Joseph Calleja with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. He returned there in 2014 to conduct again for Calleja and Sir Bryn Terfel.
Paul has written arrangements for the recently released albums of José Carreras, Joseph Calleja and Piotr Beczala, and for Deutsche Grammophon he has also written arrangements for the album of violinist Daniel Hope ‘Escape to Paradise – The Hollywood Album’ that was released in 2014. This in turn led Daniel to commission Paul to write a new suite for violin and orchestra based on the songs of Kurt Weill, followed by a suite of Gershwin Songs and a suite from West Side Story for solo violin and strings. 2020 will see.
Recent highlights include concerts with José Carreras and Sir Bryn Terfel and a new recording with Daniel Hope. Forthcoming plans include a UK Christmas concert tour again with Sir Bryn Terfel and Pumeza Matshikiza and the orchestra of Welsh National Opera and a concert tour of China with the National Symphony Orchestra in the New Year.
September 2024
