He is an oboist and conductor who started his life in
music when he became a chorister at the Salisbury Cathedral School.He joined the Purcell School for Gifted
Young Musicians and followed that up with attending the Royal School of
Music.Winning the BBC's young
Musician of the Year when he was 18, he carried on in competition winning
further first prizes at the Munich International Oboe Competition and the
International Double Reed Society Competition.From the time of leaving his
education he has been much in demand as a soloist with many British
orchestras, including every BBC orchestra, and has also been a
recitalist with many international orchestras that include the Seoul
Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Budapest
Strings
and the European Chamber Orchestra.Appearing at the Proms three years
in a row, one of them was a world premiere performance of the "Oboe
Concerto" by John Woolrich and the other was performing Helios which
was a work written specifically for him by Thea Musgrave.In his
work with chamber orchestras he regularly appears with the Lindsay
and Maggini string quartets, is a founding member of the Haffner
Wind Ensemble and has been in collaboration with the pianist Julius
Drake
since the 1980s.Moving into the realms of directorship he has been an
Artistic Director of the Britten Sinfonia, the Isle of Wight International
Oboe Competition, the Leiceseter International Music Festival and the
Osnabruck Chamber Music Days, and a Music Director of the Leicester
Symphony Orchestra.As a
teacher he has been a Professor of Oboe at Indiana University, Prince
Concert Professor and Fellow at the Royal College of Music, Professor at
the Trossingen Musikhochschule and Professor of Oboe and Chamber Music and
Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London
