Roy Goodman

Life and career

Goodman was born in Guildford and studied at the Royal College of Music, later becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and Associate of the Royal College of Music. He served as Director of Music at the University of Kent in Canterbury and Director of Early Music Studies at the Royal Academy of Music. As a violinist and concertmaster from 1975 to 1985, he performed under Iván Fischer, John Eliot Gardiner, Charles Mackerras, Roger Norrington, and Simon Rattle at Glyndebourne Opera.

He was viola d'amore soloist with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy, and played baroque violin soloist with Frans Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, René Jacobs, Trevor Pinnock, and Ton Koopman. In July 1999 he conducted the premiere of Jonas Forssell's Trädgården (The Garden) at the Drottningholm theatre in Stockholm, the first new opera premiered there in modern times.

Goodman often directed early music from the violin, harpsichord, or organ. He founded and directed the Brandenburg Consort, co-directed the Parley of Instruments, was Principal Conductor of the Hanover Band, and Music Director of the European Union Baroque Orchestra. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra and Director Emeritus of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and has guest-conducted over 100 other orchestras and opera companies.

In 2006 he debuted with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and returned to San Francisco Opera to conduct a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. His recordings range from Monteverdi to Copland, and he has directed more than forty world premieres. In 2003, Goodman pleaded guilty to operating his 24-foot trailer-sailer yacht Royana while under the influence of alcohol, having run it aground on Calshot Spit near Southampton.