Kevin Mallon

grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and moved to England on scholarship to attend Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, where he was strongly influenced by conductor and early-music specialist John Eliot Gardiner.

He later studied composition with Peter Maxwell Davies at Dartington College of Arts and violin at the Royal Northern College of Music.
From 1989 to 1992 he led The Irish Baroque Orchestra and served as concertmaster of Le Concert Spirituel and Les Arts Florissants in Paris, performing and recording extensively across Europe, as well as in Russia, China and Japan. In 1993 he took up positions with the University of Toronto and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, before leaving academia to pursue a full-time conducting career.
In 1999 Mallon founded the Aradia Ensemble, vocal and instrumental group with which he has toured internationally and made over 50 recordings for Naxos. With Aradia and as conductor of the Toronto Chamber Orchestra, he has also produced music videos and contributed to film soundtracks, including Yes Man (2008). Highlights include appearances at major festivals in New Zealand, Italy and North America, and Aradia’s appointment as orchestra in residence at the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy in 2010.
Mallon has conducted numerous opera companies and orchestras across Europe and North America. His recordings have received wide critical acclaim, including Gramophone Editor’s Choice awards for Boyce symphonies (2005) and Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks (2006), as well as Juno Award nominations in 2009 and 2016.
He has held positions as Music Director of the Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra (Ottawa), Orchestra Toronto, and the West Side Chamber Orchestra (New York), alongside ongoing international guest-conducting engagements.