John Owen Edwards is a British conductor who has been particularly associated with the lyric theatre, especially West End musicals and light opera. He conducted recordings of many of the works with which he was involved on stage. He also worked as a pianist and arranger.
Early life and career John Owen Edwards was born in Cartmel, England. He won a scholarship to study composition at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating in 1973,Chess London Programme, August 1986, biographical note on John Owen Edwards, p. 29. and soon began his career in musical theatre. He conducted for Ruth Welting at the 1975 Royal Variety Performance,Royal Variety Show 1975: Michael Crawford, Kojak, Dad's Army (final credits of TV relay) Retrieved 21 January 2025 and around the same time worked on the musical BillyChess London Programme, August 1986, biographical note on John Owen Edwards, p. 29. at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.Finstock News 144 (February/March 2024, p. 2): Finstock Folk – John Owen Edwards talking to Julian Stewart. He collaborated with the musician Stephen Oliver several times, accompanying the premiere of A Man of Feeling at the King's Head Islington in 1980,Milnes, Rodney. British Opera Diary – A Man of Feeling (Stephen Oliver). Opera, February 1981, Vol. 32, No. 2, p. 188. and as pianist in Swansong for Seven Voices by Nigel Dennis on Radio 3 in 1985."Swansong for Seven Voices BBC Radio 3". 13 January 1985. Genome. Retrieved 28 February 2025.
At the Chichester Festival Theatre, he was musical director for The Mitford Girls by Brahms, Sherrin and Greenwell in 1981,Chichester Festival Theatre archive page for The Mitford Girls 1981 accessed 22 January 2025. for Valmouth by Sandy Wilson in 1982Chichester Festival Theatre archive page for Valmouth 1982 accessed 22 January 2025. (later recorded), for the premiere of Goodbye Mr Chips by Starke and Bricusse in 1982,"Goodbye Mr Chips", Chichester Festival Theatre archive page, 1982. Retrieved 22 January 2025. followed by a recording, music supervisor for Ian Judge's production of Sondheim's A Little Night Music in 1989," A Little Night Music", Chichester Festival Theatre archive page, 1982. Retrieved 22 January 2025. and musical director for Peter Hall's production of Born Again by Barry, Hall and Carr in 1990."Born Again", Chichester Festival Theatre archive page, 1982. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
In 1984 he conducted The Ratepayers' Iolanthe (an updated version of Gilbert and Sullivan' Iolanthe involving contemporary politics) in London,Milnes, Rodney. Review – The Ratepayers' Iolanthe. Queen Elizabeth Hall, July 26. Opera, October 1984, Vol. 35, No. 10, pp. 1160–1161. followed by The Metropolitan Mikado, a similar pastiche of Gilbert and Sullivan, in 1985.Biographical note to John Owen Edwards in Booklet accompanying TER CDTER2 1170 (Kismet), 1990. He conducted the professional British stage premiere of Street Scene in April 1987, a performance in aid of London Lighthouse, where "he guided the large cast ... through this complex score with calm authority".Milnes, Rodney. "At the Musical. Street Scene, Palace Theatre, April 26", Opera, July 1987, Vol. 38, No. 7, pp. 840–841. He composed the music for Canary Blunt, a musical with words by David Firth, which premiered at the Latchmere Theatre in 1985 and for which a recording was made by That's Entertainment Records (TER). He conducted the British stage premiere of Kurt Weill's 1936 musical Johnny Johnson for Not the RSC at the Almeida Theatre, London, in August 1986.Milnes, Rodney. "At the Musical – Johnny Johnson (Weill), Not the RSC at the Almeida Theatre, London, August 15", Opera, October 1986, Vol. 37, No. 10, pp. 1209–1210. He conducted operas for the Singers Company including La Périchole, broadcast on BBC2, The Barber of Seville and La bohème.
He conducted the 1989 CD set of Kismet, which included the first recordings of five numbers from the score of Timbuktu!. and the first complete recording of The Student Prince, with David Rendall, Norman Bailey, Diana Montague, Rosemary Ashe, Bonaventura Bottone, and Leon Greene.The Classical Catalogue, Master edition 1992 No. 2. General Gramophone Publications Ltd, Harrow, 1992, p. 856. For the recording of Cabaret with Judi Dench and Fred Ebb, much more of the music was used than often heard;Giving G&S the treatment. D'Oyly Carte Music Director John Owen Edwards talk to Adrian Edwards. Gramophone, May 1993, p. 19. it was billed as covering numbers in the "Original Broadway Score, The Film Score and The Revival Score".Cabaret Completely Remastered Release, Jay records. Retrieved 25 February 2025. In August 1992 he conducted Australian Opera in Melbourne in Les Contes d'Hoffmann.Hince, Kenneth. Australia – Fitting productions (Melbourne). Opera, December 1992, Vol. 43, No. 12, pp. 1420–1421.
D'Oyly Carte and later years He was appointed music director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1992,In the News - Appointments and Awards. Opera, April 1992, Vol.43 No.4, p415. for whom he conducted and recorded The Yeomen of the Guard after a 26-week tour starting from the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. This recording featured rarely played horn parts in the Shadbolt aria "When Jealous Torments", Meryll's song "A Laughing Boy", a phrase for Kate in the finale, and the original version of "Is Life a Boon?". One critic noted of the revived D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, "Their greatest single asset is the music director John Owen Edwards: both pieces (Iolanthe and The Count of Luxembourg) were extremely well conducted and their idioms clearly differentiated via an alert orchestra, the Sullivan beautifully clear, allowing one to relish anew the exquisite instrumentation, the Lehar authentically luscious".Milnes, Rodney. Iolanthe and The Count of Luxembourg – D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton. Opera, December 1997, Vol. 48, No. 12, pp. 1477–1478. For the years he was music director of D’Oyly Carte, he conducted Patience, The Yeomen of the Guard, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe, Orpheus in the Underworld, Die Fledermaus, The Count of Luxembourg and La Vie Parisienne. The Mikado was filmed at Buxton Opera House and broadcast on BBC2 on Boxing Day 1992. Owen Edwards was happy with the policy of D'Oyly Carte to branch out into parts of the light opera repertoire beyond its traditional Gilbert and Sullivan, "mentioning in passing such diverse possibilities as ... The Merry Wives of Windsor, German's Tom Jones [and] The Most Happy Fella", the last of which he recorded complete in the late 1990s with Loesser's daughter Emily as Rosabella and included six extracts cut before the opera opened on Broadway.Blewitt, David. The Most Happy Fella, Loesser - CD review. Opera, July 2001, Vol. 52, No. 7, p. 890.
At the National Theatre in London he conducted Oklahoma!National Theatre Archive – Owen Edwards, Music Director of Oklahoma!, 1998 accessed 22 January 2025. He also conducted Orpheus in the Underworld for British Youth Opera in 2002,Milnes, Rodney. Opera on the fringe. Le nozze di Figaro and Orpheus in the Underworld – British Youth Opera at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, September 2 and 5. Opera, Vol. 53, No. 11, November 2002, p. 1391. and at Opera Holland Park in 2009. His concert work includes a series of Gilbert and Sullivan concerts with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra,
He has been the musical director of a number of musicals in London's West End, including Annie, Evita, Chess, Anything Goes, The Phantom of the Opera, The Sloane Ranger Revue, The King and I, and A Little Night Music, and also worked on The Wizard of Oz for the Royal Shakespeare Company. For the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts, he conducted the musicals Guys and Dolls and Damn Yankees, also Showboat at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg, and Hello, Dolly! at the Vienna VolksoperJohn Owen Edwards search at Operabase accessed 22 January 2025.
For the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich, John Owen Edwards created the new orchestration for the continental premiere of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."Biography of John Owen Edwards", Gärtnerplatz Theater, Munich, accessed 14 December 2024. At the Stadttheater Klagenfurt he conducted Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 2009, My Fair Lady, and Les Misérables. At Opera Holland Park he conducted Die Fledermaus in 2004, Die lustige Witwe in 2006 and Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) in 2009.Reed, Peter. "Orpheus in the Underworld – Opera Holland Park". Opera, September 2009, Vol. 60, No. 9, p. 1128.
He has also conducted many concerts, including with Alfie Boe and ABBA, and taught as a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1977 to 1985, where he conducted Company and Wonderful Town. In 1990 he returned to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to conduct "with complete authority" a production of On the Twentieth CenturyMilnes, Rodney. "At the Musical – On the Twentieth Century, Opera, September 1990, Vol. 41, No. 9, pp. 1135–1136. and, in July 1991, Out of this world.Milnes, Rodney. "At the Musical – Out of this World, Opera, October 1991, Vol. 42, No. 10, pp. 1232–1233.
In 2012 he supervised rehearsals for a production of The Grand Duke at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival and took a joint curtain call in a wheelchair.Canning, Hugh. "The Grand Duke; H.M.S. Pinafore; Ruddigore" – Opera House, Buxton, August 17, Buxton’s International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival. Opera, November 2012, Vol. 63, No. 11, p. 1406.
Radio Owen Edwards's work on BBC radio included programmes with the vocal group Cantabile, music for E. F. Benson's Secret Lives, dramatised and narrated by Aubrey Woods, and the same author's Queen Lucia in 1984, Friday Night Is Music Night in 1999 and 2001, from 1978 three series of the comic show The Jason Explanation with David Jason, a radio presentation of Julian Slade's Trelawny in 1983, the RSC production of The Lorenzaccio Story, A Bullet in the Ballet by Brahms and Simon in 1987, dramatised by Pat Hooker, and Salad Days in 1994, on Radio 2.
Discography Annie - 1978 Original London Cast, with Ann-Marie Gwatkin, Sheila Hancock, Judith Paris, Richard Manuel (CBS) Oklahoma! - 1980 London Cast, with John Diedrich, Rosamund Shelley (Jay Records) The Mitford Girls - 1981 Original London Cast, with Patricia Hodge, Lucy Fenwick, Oz Clarke (Philips) Goodbye, Mr. Chips - 1982 Chichester Festival Cast, with John Mills, Simon Butteriss, Paul Hardwick, Nigel Stock, Robert Meadmore (TER) Valmouth - 1982 Chichester Festival Cast, with Bertice Reading, Cheryl Kennedy, Femi Taylor, Fenella Fielding, Robert Meadmore, Doris Hare, Simon Butteriss, Mark Wynter, Robert Helpmann, Marcia Ashton (TER) The Wizard of Oz - 1988 RSC London Cast, with Trevor Peacock, Gillian Bevan, Paul Greenwood, Simon Green (TER) Anything Goes - 1989 London Cast, with Elaine Paige, Howard McGillin, Bernard Cribbins (First Night Records) Kismet 1989, with Valerie Masterson, Donald Maxwell, David RendallFinborough Theatre - The Grand Duke. About The Musical Director John Owen Edwards. accessed 14 December 2024. (Jay Records) The Student Prince - 1989 Studio Cast, with Norman Bailey, Marilyn Hill Smith, Diana Montague, David Rendall (Jay Records) A Little Night Music 1990 with Siân Phillips, Bonaventura Bottone, Eric Flynn, Maria Friedman, Susan Hampshire, Janis Kelly, Elisabeth Welch - 1990 (Jay Records) Song of Norway - 1990 London Studio Cast, with Valerie Masterson, Donald Maxwell, Diana Montague, David Rendall, Elizabeth Bainbridge, Yit Kin Seow (TER) Oliver! 1991 Studio Cast, with Josephine Barstow, Boys of King's College School, Julian Forsyth, Nickolas Grace, Sheila Hancock, Stuart Kale, Richard Van Allan, Richard South, Irfan Ahmad (TER) Cabaret - 1993 Studio Cast, with Judi Dench, Fred Ebb, Maria Friedman, Caroline O'Connor, Jonathan Pryce, John Mark Ainsley (Jay Records)