Yshani Perinpanayagam is a pianist, conductor, music director and composer known for the breadth of her artistry across genres and disciplines. She has performed at venues from Wigmore Hall to the London Palladium, at events from Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival to the All Your Bass Festival, and with artists from the Philharmonia to Kate Nash. She has written works for the London Sinfonietta, Onyx Brass, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Multi-Story Orchestra, St. Martin’s Voices, and for a play about Fanny Mendelssohn, as well as premiering works herself by Charlotte Bray, Joe Cutler, Gavin Higgins, Hannah Kendall, Claudia Molitor and Alex Paxton. She is a regular guest broadcaster on BBC Radio 3.
From podium to pit, Yshani’s bold, collaborative and imaginative leadership of diverse projects has garnered her international recognition. Such projects include Street Scene for Opéra de Paris, triple-Oliver winner Emilia at the west end’s Vaudeville Theatre, Ruination for the Royal Ballet, Passion starring Ruthie Henshall, Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at Mighty Hoopla pop Festival, Goat for Rambert Dance Company / Lost Dog Dance, Australian circus troupe Circa at the Barbican, Les Noces for New Movement Collective, and with Olivier award winning show Showstopper! The Improvised Musical. She was Consultant MD for Olivier-winning Wolf Witch Giant Fairy, a collaboration between Royal Opera singers and
devising folk artists Little Bulb Theatre. Yshani is currently music director and multi-instrumentalist performer in the new music-theatre work The F**gots and Their Friends Between Revolutions by Philip Venables & Ted Huffman with performances at Manchester International Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Bregenzer Festspiele, next performing at the Park Avenue Armory in December 2025.
Yshani was winner of the 10th Yamaha Birmingham Accompanist of the Year Award. She was a scholar at both the Royal College of Music and the guildhall school of music and drama. Yshani is one of the founding composers at sound & Music’s Music Patron, an initiative seeking to revolutionise the way new music is funded. She is represented by Rayfield Allied.
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Street Scene
Opera National de Paris
The orchestra moves brilliantly from jazzy accents to grand operatic flights without ever covering the voices, instead in beautiful harmony with them…. Through her clear and precise direction Yshani Perinpanayagam, a young British conductor with a successful international career, makes a significant Parisian debut here
Concert Classic
In the pit, the conductor Yshani Perinpanayagam breathes great energy and an infectious sense of swing
Concertonet
Ruination
Royal Ballet and Opera, London
it’s made transcendent by a very extra backing track: Musical director and onstage pianist Yshani Perinpanayagam swathes the show in a weird, genius musical patchwork where old hits by Radiohead and George Harrison become soaring vessels to transport you to another world
Time Out
Throughout the evening we are treated to some fabulous live music from Yshani Perinpanayagam on Piano, performing everything from Rachmaninoff to Steve Reich clapping music.... The music is all curated by Perinpanayagam, worthy of a soundtrack production
London Unattached
Powerful pianism from musical director Yshani Perinpanayagam and heart-stopping singing from counter-tenor Keith Pun and torch songstress Sheree DuBois, in music ranging from Purcell to Radiohead, effect many stirring shifts of register and mood.
The Arts Desk
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