About
After a busy end to the season with Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' I'm enjoying finalising various plans for 2025/26 with colleagues both old and new.
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While new dates will be listed on the website soon, I am delighted to be returning to the London Firebird Orchestra this year after successful concerts in London and Oxford this past season. I'm also looking forward to announcing new projects closer to my northern base, and I've some exciting summer opera news in the works.
Watch this space.
Michael Thrift...conducted with an equally steady hand, notably poised in the dying moments of Stef Conner's 'The Ruin.'
- The Guardian
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Hailing from Sydney, Australian-British conductor Michael Thrift is a conductor of opera, symphony and new music.
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In 2014 he joined the team at Fulham Opera for Verdi’s Falstaff, returning to lead Puccini’s Il Tabarro in 2015. Following that he has conducted the revival of Falstaff, as well as new productions of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Don Carlo, and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Michael has conducted works at the Rousse State Theatre, Bulgaria, leading the company’s forces in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and Saint-Saens Samson et Delilah. Elsewhere, Michael has led productions of Wagner’s Parsifal, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Bizet’s Carmen as well as performances of Britten’s Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and Beethoven’s Fidelio, In 2021 he led an acclaimed performance in the London Opera Company’s debut production of Tristan & Isolde.
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In the symphonic realm Michael ‘... brings the best of the textural clarity offered by historically informed performance, while allowing the romance of the music to build.’ Michael is the Principal Guest Conductor of the London Firebird Orchestra, with whom he leads several projects every season. Recent highlights with LFO include performances of Brahms’ C minor Symphony, Beethoven’s Fifth, a recording of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.1, new music collaborations with the University of Middlesex, and a tour to Oxford.
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Educated in Sydney, Michael undertook studies in composition at Sydney University, alongside conducting. Notable achievements include winning the Young Composer of the Year Award (ASME), and performances by the Adelaide Symphony and the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra. A passionate advocate for new music, he is an active part of the London new music scene. In 2013, he helped to inaugurate the Composer’s Academy at the Cheltenham Festival and has worked with the Dr. K Sextet in both Cheltenham and London. He has led premiers of new music with the London Firebird Orchestra, and has worked closely with composition students from the University of Middlesex during LFO’s collaborations since 2018.
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In his free time, Michael enjoys sharing the delights of South-Australian red wines, as well as decrying the state of New Zealand whites. An unabashed love of sci-fi literature provides escapism. Michael regularly lives a vicarious, alternative existence through the Australia cricket team, though his duties to music inevitably snap him back into reality. He lives with his wife and two sons in Manchester.