Welcome to my website. Whatever brought you here – perhaps we’re working together; maybe you’re coming to one of my concerts or thinking of joining a group that I conduct – thanks for visiting! Here you can find out about me (conductors are all egotists to some extent, and love to talk about themselves) and about my upcoming performances. You can even use the ‘Contact’ page to berate me for wrong tempi or to advise me on repertoire I’m neglecting.
The last season has been a particularly busy one, because alongside my various conducting posts I’ve taken on the no.3 First Violin position in the English Symphony Orchestra and the job of reviews editor of The Wagner Journal (check out our brand-new website), to which I’ve been contributing for several years. These are dream jobs for me, as I get to work with two people who inspire me immensely: Zoë Beyers, who leads ESO as well as the BBC Philharmonic, and Barry Millington, one of the most experienced music journalists in the business and among the world’s foremost authorities on Wagner.
As I gear up for the 2024–25 season I’m looking forward to concerts with many old friends and with new ones, in repertoire from Gabrieli to Gershwin, Handel to Higdon. As much as I can, I’m going to keep my fiddle playing up as well, because though conducting is what I do, I miss the camaraderie of a violin section, where I can actually make a noise, and have a moan about the conductor.
I’ll still find time for my interests alongside music; I’m a good way through my degree in Astronomy now, and though I doubt I will be able to unify Quantum Theory with General Relativity any time soon I continue to find the whole subject fascinating. For me, astronomy and music both give us a sense of how special we are, of how extraordinary it is to exist. I hope I can communicate some of that wonder in my concerts. See you there!
