Kenneth Montgomery

Kenneth Montgomery OBE (28 October 1943 – 5 March 2023) was a British conductor active in the concert hall and opera house.

[5][6] In 1985, he became both artistic and musical director of Opera Northern Ireland, where his repertoire included Die Entführung aus dem Serail, The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte, The Magic Flute, Faust and La bohème.

[3] From 1982, Montgomery was a regular guest conductor at Santa Fe Opera (SFO),[8] and in May 2007, he was named its interim music director, succeeding Alan Gilbert.

His conducting of Orfeo ed Euridice for Scottish Opera in 2015 with a production by dancer and choreographer Ashley Page was praised for their "sophisticated simplicity", the reviewer continuing "Montgomery’s experience told: he got the best out of the orchestra — and out of the music, too, partly by letting the textures breathe but also by refusing to hurry it".

[12] He conducted Idomeneo in the Netherlands, projecting "the throb and thrust of this impulsive score, but also its tragic timelessness, with total mastery"[13] and in the UK, where the reviewer praised his "vitally theatrical conducting [which] recalled Glyndebourne in the Pritchard years", and mused why Montgomery "this deeply musical British conductor" was so little heard in the UK.