I basically think and read and think and read and think… and then create. I am the director of Oxford Festival of the Arts, artistic director of Three Palaces Festival in Malta, conductor at Queen Mary University of London and freelance artist, mostly as a conductor, curator, strategist or consultant, lecturer or speaker. I have a wonderful relationship with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. My latest lecture was on interdisciplinarity. This was for Oxford Prospects and Global Development Institute at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford. Other lectures for the university include The Role of a Conductor as a Curator for the Westminster Choir College Choral Institute - a partnership between the University of Oxford and Rider University, New Jersey; and, as a speaker for the annual Careers Conference for Researchers: Careers beyond Academia in the Creative Industries. I have been invited to discuss subjects such as the current situation of music and education (Wigmore Hall), and new music and audiences (Austrian Cultural Forum). I was one of the workshop leaders and co-organiser with the BBC working group, for the BBC/BASCA one-day pan-industry conference on diversity and inclusion in composition.

I love teaching; and, apart from more abstract conceptual subjects that I really enjoy discussing, one of the subjects I have always loved is Orchestration. I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; and a member of the Oxford Union Debating Society. I believe in the power of the arts and in the beauty of collaboration; and I love the process of creation (or rehearsal period) with other people. Few things are as powerful as the inexplicable feeling one gets after performance, the collectively shared, strongly palpable, emotive sense on stage, the communication with the audience, the adrenalin rush, or the mixture of being the most powerful when you are at your most vulnerable and exposed - in your naked state on stage.

I am proud to be a perpetual student - always learning and discovering, and in so doing, always realising there is so much more to discover, and millions of spokes of connecting lines that I probably am not even aware of yet. I am excited about discovery: be that spotting a ladybird on a leaf, examing an artefact, or reading a score. I have explored architectural history as well as philosophy; I have researched cults of saints and patronage in medieval times and discussed shifting paradigms and the resultant sacred soundscapes during the Reformation(s) in Tudor England. I have scraped the surface of pageantry through the 1604 Royal Entry of James I into London, and Stephen Harrison’s majestic Arches of Triumph, as seen through his designs and Thomas Dekker’s account. I have tried to substantiate my claim that architecture is also a method of display via a “take-over” of Imperial War Museum North - a curation which went on to win the Times Higher Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts. I am interested in symbolism and allegory and visual representation and emblem literature. I have discussed Jacobean Masques and Inigo Jones; investigated the Society of Dillentante and the Grand Tour, and Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities of Athens and its influences; changes of perspective through Palladio; symbolism and the influence of medieval illuminations on the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s watercolour period; started to examine exquisite illuminated manuscripts and Books of Hours. I am fascinated by the Vienna Secession; and enamoured with material culture.

For my doctorate, I specialised in conducting and the beautiful art of orchestration, re-creating Mahler’s (unfinished) Tenth Symphony through a new performing edition made in the contemporaneous tradition of the Verein für Musikalische Privataufführungen, using Mahler’s own surviving sketches.  Published by Universal Edition Vienna, this new performing edition was officially premiered by John Storgårds and the Lapland Chamber Orchestra at Korundi House of Culture, Finland.  Since then, it has been taken on by other ensembles in different countries and has been on digital worldwide broadcast on World Concert Hall.  It received its London premiere last November and there have been two CD recordings (BIS Records and ARS Produktion).  The BIS/Storgårds recording was out in March 2019 and is receiving double 5* 10-10-10 reviews, internationally.  It was No. 1 Orchestral Choice of the month, on BBC Music Magazine – The Proms Edition, July 2019.  Reviews for Ensemble Mini/JoolzGale/Berlin have just started coming in. It has already received the accolade of the Supersonic Award by Pizzicato (Remy Franck), and has just been nominated for the OPUS KLASSIK 2021 Awards.

Latest performances:  

October 2020: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki. Musiikkitalo, Helsinki (live streamed & on YouTube)

November 2020: Undine - A Dream Ballet (Mahler 10 full ballet)
Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz (Ballet & Orchestra), Michael Brandstätter, Karl Alfred Schreiner. Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Munich  [postponed to 2021 due to lockdown] 

December 2020: Music and the Cosmos
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dalia Stasevska, Brian Cox. Barbican Centre, London (also live streamed)

April 2021:  BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac van Steen. Hoddinott Hall - Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru (Wales Millennium Centre)
(No live audience. Recorded live on BBC R3 & BBC Sounds)

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PhD Doctorate in Music: Conducting & Orchestration
MSt Masters of Studies in Literature & Arts
MMus Masters in Music: Conducting (Second Subject: Composition)
MSt Masters in Historical Studies
DipSacMus Diploma in Sacred Music
B.A. (Hons) Bachelors of Arts (Honours): Music [undergrad: Psychology] 

Associateships and Licentiateships in Piano, Voice and Theory of Music; Awards & Scholarships (incl. placing first in the European Union STEPS Award)

I love the fact that my college is New College, University of Oxford.