Geoffrey Paterson read Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, studying composition with Alexander Goehr, and subsequently studied as a conductor with Peter Stark in London, Alasdair Mitchell at the RSAMD, Diego Masson in Dartington and Peter Eötvös and Pierre Boulez in Lucerne, before training at the National Opera Studio as a répétiteur. In 2009 he was awarded First Prize at the Ninth Leeds Conductors Competition, where he also won the audience prize. In 2010 he joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, where he has worked as assistant to Antonio Pappano and Rory Macdonald and conducted staged excerpts from Death in Venice with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera.
As an undergraduate Geoffrey conducted a production of Peter Grimes with the Cambridge University Opera Society, and he has since worked on the music staff of The Royal Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Edinburgh International Festival, The Opera Group and British Youth Opera. In 2010 he made his debut at Opera North conducting La bohème. In 2011 he made his Iford Opera Festival debut with Don Giovanni and conducted the world première of Julian Philips' Followers at Glyndebourne.
Geoffrey's recent concert debuts have included the Manchester Camerata's New Year's gala at the Bridgewater Hall and two performances of George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, leading to an immediate re-invitation for the following season. In past seasons Geoffrey has conducted at the Aldeburgh and Cheltenham festivals, and in workshops and competitions he has worked with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North and the Hallé; he has also worked as musical assistant on film music projects and recordings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and at the Komische Oper Berlin.
Geoffrey's repertoire includes works by Benjamin, Berio, Birtwistle, Boulez, Carter, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Stockhausen and Takemitsu, and he has conducted numerous world premières by composers including Brian Elias, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir John Tavener. He has been engaged by the London Sinfonietta and MusikFabrik as rehearsal conductor for works by Boulez. In 2010 he founded the Theseus Ensemble, specialising in modernist repertoire of the late 20th and 21st Centuries.