Mark Heron is a Scottish conductor known for dynamic and well-rehearsed performances across an unusually wide range of repertoire.

He is the music director of the Nottingham Philharmonic, University of Manchester Symphony, and Liverpool Mozart Orchestras. As a member of the conducting faculty at the Royal Northern College of Music, Mark works regularly with the full range of the College’s orchestras and ensembles. As a guest conductor he has worked with many professional ensembles including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia, Pori Sinfonietta, St Petersburg Festival Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Pärnu Philharmonic.

Dedicated to working with young musicians, in addition to his roles at the RNCM and Manchester University, Mark has worked with ensembles from the Royal Academy of Music, Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, Tilburg & Maastricht Conservatories, the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Israel, and many more.

Mark has a keen interest in contemporary music and has given world premieres of many important works. He has collaborated with leading composers such as Magnus Lindberg, James McMillan, Mark Anthony Turnage, Giya Kancheli, Unsuk Chin, Kalevi Aho, Detlev Glanert, Christopher Rouse and gave the European premiere of American composer Daron Hagen’s opera, Bandanna. He has recorded 10 CDs with the RNCM Wind Orchestra featuring contemporary wind repertoire.

Mark studied at the RSAMD and the RNCM. Following a successful chamber music career and freelance work with many of the UK’s professional symphony orchestras, he undertook conducting studies at the RNCM and has worked intensively in master classes with Neeme & Paavo Järvi, Jorma Panula, and Sir Mark Elder. In 2005 Mark was awarded first prize in the Neeme Järvi conducting competition and in 2006 he worked with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra as one of three young conductors selected by the orchestra for their mentoring programme.

Alongside his conducting engagements, Mark has a burgeoning reputation as a conducting teacher and students of his have achieved notable success, often at a very young age. As well as his work at the RNCM within the College’s Junior Fellowship, Masters, and External Studies programmes he has developed an elite undergraduate conducting programme at Manchester University, teaches annually at Sherborne Summer School, is a visiting professor to the Royal Air Force and appears often as a guest at conducting courses and master classes.

(November 2011. Not to be edited without consent)

"...the finale [of Tchaikovsky Symphony No.5] in particular was most impressive. Transitions between tempos were imaginative and convincing, there was some wonderful phrasing, and the optimistic climax well prepared and executed."

 

“In Saturday's performance under Mark Heron, Shostakovich's Seventh was vindicated as a masterpiece in its own right. A singular one for sure, but full of authentic expressive riches. The emotional ambivalence that was part of the composer loomed large in this performance, starting with the casual entry of the first movement's martial subject, and ending with the tonality of the work's final chords.”

 

"Despite his considerable experience, Mark Heron was conducting a Bruckner symphony for the first time. A composer like no other calls for a special approach and technique, and these were supplied in full measure. Above all it was the work's monumental features which were realised so effectively, as well as an enchantment recalling Schubert or Mahler. The many hushed openings to new paragraphs – "I need to take a deep breath," said Bruckner – were beautifully played. This music seemed to come not off the printed page but out of the surrounding ether."