Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Matthias Bamert combines this position with a busy schedule of guest conducting engagements around the world.  In Europe he has been invited to guest conduct orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber, Residentie Orkest The Hague, MDR Leipzig, Berlin Symphony, Helsinki, Oslo and St Petersburg Philharmonic, Madrid RTVE, Orquesta Nacional de Espana and Barcelona Opera Liceu, amongst others.  In North America he works regularly with Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston, Montreal, Toronto and St Louis Symphony and this season he returns to the Cleveland Orchestra and Seattle Symphony and also conducts the Minnesota Orchestra.  Bamert is a regular guest in the Far East and Australasia including concerts in Japan with the NHK Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony, in Australia with Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and in Malaysia with the Malaysian Philharmonic.

Music Director of the London Mozart Players for seven years, he has masterminded a hugely successful series of recordings of works by "Contemporaries of Mozart" which has already exceeded 50 symphonies. In 1999, the orchestra’s 50th anniversary year, he conducted them at the BBC Proms, in Vienna and at the Lucerne Festival and returned with them to Japan in January 2000. He has worked frequently in the concert hall and studio with such orchestras as the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, has appeared regularly at the London Proms, and often appears with orchestras outside London such as the BBC Philharmonic and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Director of the Glasgow contemporary music festival Musica Nova from 1985-90, Bamert became known for his innovative programming and has conducted the world premieres of works by many composers such as Takemitsu, Casken, Macmillan and Rihm. His gift for imaginative programming came to the fore during his tenure as Director of the Lucerne Festival (1992-98), when he was also responsible for the opening of a new concert hall, instituted a new Easter Festival, a piano festival, expanded the programme and increased the festival’s activities several times over.

A prolific recording artist, Bamert has made over 80 discs, many of which have won international prizes, and he continues to record extensively with Chandos Records, in a wide repertoire – Mozart’s contemporaries with the London Mozart Players, Parry (the complete symphonies) and Frank Martin (5 discs) with the London Philharmonic, the symphonies of Roberto Gerhard with the BBC Symphony, Dutch composers with the Residentie Orchestra, and the Stokowski transcriptions, Korngold and Dohnanyi with the BBC Philharmonic.

Born in Switzerland, and Music Director of the Swiss Radio Orchestra in Basel from 1977-1983, he has been resident in London since 1987. However, his conducting career began in North America as an apprentice to George Szell and later as Assistant Conductor to Leopold Stokowski, and Resident Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. This legacy lives on in his hugely popular recordings for Chandos with the BBC Philharmonic of Stokowski’s arrangements of Bach, Wagner and Mussorgsky.