Conductor Kevin Mallon grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A scholarship brought him to Manchester's specialist music school, Chetham's School of Music where he was greatly influenced by the conductor and early music specialist John Eliot Gardiner. Later studies included composition with Peter Maxwell Davies at Dartington College Of Arts and violin at the Royal Northern College of Music.
In 1996 he was invited to be Music Director of the vocal and instrumental group the Aradia Ensemble. With Aradia he has achieved extraordinary success. They have recorded over twenty-five CDs for the Naxos label, have made two music videos, one film soundtrack, have collaborated with Isadora Duncan and Baroque dancers, and have co-produced opera and worked with Balinese Gamelan. In July 2000, they were the featured ensemble in the New Zealand International Chamber Music Festival and in the summer of 2003 they performed in the festival "Musica nel Chiostro" in Tuscany.
Mallon is also Music Director of the Toronto Chamber Orchestra – a group made up of some of Toronto's best orchestral musicians. They have recorded fifteen CDs for Naxos including Vivaldi's Four Seasons, CPE Bach's Flute Concerti (with Patrick Gallois) and a series of 18th century symphonies.
He has conducted the contemporary opera company Opera Anonymous in productions of Stravinsky's Rakes Progress (1999) and the early 19th century opera Lucas et Cecile by Canadian Joseph Quesnel (2001). More recently with Toronto's Opera in Concert, he has conducted Handel's Semele (2002), Rameau's Castor and Pollux (2003), Handel's Rinaldo (2004), Vivaldi's La Griselda (2006), Mozart's Zaide (2007) and Handel's Tamerlano (2008). Mallon also has an affinity for operetta and with the Toronto Operetta Theatre Mallon has conducted Wiener Blut by Johann Strauss (2006), The Merry Widow (2007) and The Count of Luxembourg (2008) by Franz Lehár.
In 2004 the Gramophone and BBC magazines featured major profiles of Mallon. His recording of Boyce symphonies won a Gramophone Editors choice award in August 2005 and his recording of Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks won the same award in March 2006.
In Ireland he was appointed Artistic Director of Opera 2005, Ireland's newest opera company, formed to celebrate Cork's tenure as European Capital of Culture. With this company he has conducted Mozart's Figaro's Wedding (2005), Bizet's Carmen, Weill's Threepenny Opera (2006), Rossini's Barber of Seville (2006), Lehár's Merry Widow (2007), Mozart's Don Giovanni (2007) and Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (2008).The productions of Figaro and The Barber of Seville were both nominated for Best Opera Production with the prestigious Irish Times Theatre Awards.
In 2006 Mallon accepted the position of Artistic Director of the Grand River Baroque Festival. This festival takes place every June and is set in the picturesque village of Ayr Ontario and is the only baroque festival of its type in the province. The Aradia Ensemble is the orchestra in residence at the festival. In addition, he fulfills numerous invitations to guest conduct in Canada and throughout the world. Mallon is also interested in Irish traditional music.
