Jonathan Bloxham

Music Director Luzerner Theater
Chief Conductor Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie 
Conductor in Residence and Artistic Advisor London Mozart Players

British conductor Jonathan Bloxham was appointed Music Director of the Luzerner Theater in 2023, having debuted there in 2022 with Bluebeard’s Castle. After achieving great success last season with acclaimed new productions of La Bohème (“the opera highlight of the season”, Luzerner Zeitung), I Capuleti e I Montecchi and Dido and Aeneas, in 24/25 Bloxham conducts Idomeneo, Fledermaus, Luisa Miller and Hansel and Gretel.
Bloxham made his Glyndebourne Festival debut in 2021, conducting Luisa Miller with the London Philharmonic. In the same year he conducted Glyndebourne Touring Opera´s production Don Pasquale, having performed Rigoletto with the orchestra in 2019.

After first debuting with the orchestra in 2020 this season Bloxham begins his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie following in the footsteps of Andris Nelsons and Jonothan Heyward, and conducting concerts on two German tours as well as in their subscription season in Herford. In 2021 he recorded a CD of Strauss and Franck with the orchestra, described as “irresistible” by Musicweb International.

Resident conductor and Artistic Advisor of the London Mozart Players since 2022, Bloxham continues his close relationship with the orchestra this season, leading their concert series at St Martin-in-the-Fields and Fairfield Halls, and on a four-concert Swiss tour. Last season they celebrated the orchestra’s 75th birthday with a recreation of Mozart’s 1783 Vienna concert, and marked Croydon’s year as Borough of Culture with ambitious community projects.

Guest highlights of the past couple of seasons have included London Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Tokyo Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteumorchester, Halle Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Belgian National, Residentie Orkest, Tonkünstlerorchester at the Grafenegg Festival, Bonn Beethovenorchester, Trondheim Symphony and Philharmonic Brass (musicians from Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras) – many of these on multiple occasions.  This season he returns to the BBC Symphony to conduct Wagner and Charles Ives, conducts the BBC Philharmonic in an opera gala, and debuts at the Enescu Festival with the Romanian National Radio Orchestra.

In 2024 Bloxham released a recording of Bach’s Keyboard Concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Tianqi Du, which reached number one on the Apple Classical Top 100 global chart. He has also recorded works by Bruce Broughton with the London Symphony Orchestra (2024), as well as discs for future release with the BBC Scottish Symphony (2022) and London Mozart Players (2023).

Bloxham’s conducting career was launched in 2016 when he took up the Assistant Conductor position at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla. Before taking up conducting he enjoyed a prolific career as a cellist, performing regularly at the Wigmore Hall and across Europe, making his concerto debut at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2012. He learnt cello at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Royal College of Music and then at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Master’s), and later studied conducting with Sian Edwards, Michael Seal, Nicolas Pasquet and Paavo Järvi.

For the past 16 years Bloxham has been Artistic Director of the Northern Chords Festival based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, commissioning new works from young composers such as Jack Sheen and Freya Waley Cohen. He returns to the Festival in 2025.