Music and Performance

I had a pretty life-changing musical beginning. Chosen as one of 4 boy soprano soloists I spent a year with Benjamin Britten’s English Opera Group appearing in two of his church operas – Curlew River and Burning Fiery Furnace – and his truly magical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Touring the world as a 14 year-old was a formative experience and led to the title role in the first UK tv version of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, which the BBC archives have apparently managed to lose! A kindly violin teacher at my school, realising that I needed a musical outlet after my voice broke – I was left with a sad croak – thrust a violin in my hand. Progress was rapid and I found myself studying at the Royal Academy of Music, then in Geneva and finally in Soviet-era Moscow with a year in the Munich Chamber Orchestra in between. Breaking my wrist in the depths of a Russian winter didn’t exactly advance my progress, but I returned to join the English Chamber Orchestra, then one of the top groups, travelling constantly and working with some of the best names in music – Barenboim, Perahia, Uchida, Stern, Zuckerman, Baker, Ma et al. The forward march of the period instrument movement drew me in too, and I found myself immersed in the semantics of authentic music-making with Norrington and Hogwood and exploring Mozart piano concerti with pianist Melvyn Tan in a group we formed together. Chamber music also figured and one highlight was recording the Mendelssohn Octet with Hausmuzik for EMI.

In 1993, I founded the Festival de St Agrève in a great barn high in the hills of the Ardèche, France. The festival has become an important cultural landmark in that remote region, attracting internationally renowned artists and a public ranging from local farmers to visitors from Lyon and Paris.

From 1979 – 2006, I toured the world as a violinist with groups including the English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Classical Players, London Sinfonietta and Hausmusik.  With pianist Melvyn Tan, I founded the New Mozart Ensemble – a chamber orchestra and small ensemble which performed in halls from New York, Amsterdam and Berlin to Hong Kong, Glasgow and London.

Alarmed by the state of music education in Britain, in 1998, I founded the charity “Young Musicians at the Tabernacle” to bring to state primary school children in London at least some idea of what music is. Year 4 kids had workshops with remarkable choral trainer Suzi Digby, while I presented year 5 pupils with workshops on various themes animated by many of my top professional colleagues. Kids from all kinds of backgrounds experienced Mozart and his Queen of the Night, Instruments of the Orchestra, Carnival of the Animals and much more. We saw at least 15,000 pupils over the charity’s lifetime and I like to think we made some difference. An unforgettable moment was when an 8-year old came up to me after a session and said, “So, music is what feelings sound like.”That made it all worthwhile!