Vanessa Scammell

Vanessa Scammell enjoys a diverse portfolio of work as a conductor of ballet, musical theatre, concert repertoire and opera.

Her postgraduate study includes a Masters in Conducting and she has been the recipient of the Brian Stacey Award and the Robert and Elizabeth Albert Conducting Fellowship for The Australian Ballet.

Conducting credits include:

The Australian Ballet: The Dream, Body Torque, Nutcracker.

Opera Australia: The Merry Widow, My Fair Lady, South Pacific, La traviata

Music Theatre: Funny Girl (Sydney Symphony Orchestra), Hello Dolly, The Light in the Piazza, The Producers, Damn Yankees, West Side Story, Chicago, The Phantom of the Opera, Titanic, CATS and Fiddler on the Roof.

Vanessa has regularly conducted the Sydney, Queensland, Melbourne, Christchurch, West Australian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras.  Her concert credits include: From Broadway to La Scala; Peter and Jack starring Barry Humphries, Idina Menzel LIVE – Barefoot at the Symphony; Eskimo Joe and Lea Salonga in Concert.

She was Musical Director for The Divorce (an opera commissioned for television by Opera Australia, Princess Pictures and the ABC) and has been the Helpmann Award’s Music Director for the past 12 years.

In 2018, Vanessa conducted The Merry Widow for Opera Australia, West Australian Opera and Opera Queensland.  She also led a symphonic tour of Planet Earth for the BBC; in 2019, she conducted the national tour of Blue Planet 2 and was appointed Guest Conductor of the Hubei Symphony Orchestra in China.

Other 2019 engagements included Sweeney Todd and Jekyll & Hyde (both starring Anthony Warlow) and an encore national tour of From Broadway to La Scala.  In 2020, she conducts the Hong Kong Philharmonic in Blue Planet 2 and Opera Queensland’s production of Tosca.