John started his musical life as a cellist, at primary school in Stoke-on-Trent, aged nearly 10. At 14, he became a member of Staffordshire Youth Orchestra and later its principal cellist. At 15, he was awarded a place to study with Florence Hooton of the Royal Academy of Music, and aged 18 continued his studies at the Academy under Derek Simpson. Whilst there, he was a member of the Symphony Orchestra under the batons of Maurice Handford, Simon Rattle, Colin Metters and John Carew, and principal cellist of The Young Musicians' Symphony Orchestra, an inter-collegiate, conservatoire-aged orchestra in London. Afterwards, he attended a postgraduate orchestral course run by the BBC & Musicians Union; The National Centre for Orchestral Studies. Whilst there, he honed his orchestral technique and learnt many of his conducting skills from the wonderful conductors he worked with there.
John has worked with many legendary conductors, including Simon Rattle, Antal Dorati, Andrew Davis, Charles Groves, Vernon Handley, Edward Downes, Richard Hickox, Rudolf Barshai, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Norman Del Mar.
He plays professionally as a cellist, and has played in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was privileged to accompany Luciano Pavarotti, Katherine Jenkins and Tony Hadley, amongst others.
John has been conducting orchestras for 30 plus years and has worked with players from RPO, LPO, BBCCO, BBCSO, BBCNOW in that time. He has conducted orchestras in and around the London area, as well as Birmingham and abroad. John was for 15 years conductor of Watford School of Music Youth Orchestra. In November 2016, this orchestra closed the first night of the Music For Youth Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and received an ovation from a capacity crowd. Over the years, John has nurtured three different youth ensembles into the national festival of Music For Youth.
John is currently the principal conductor of Audentior Symphony Orchestra, based in Watford. This orchestra is a mix of professional and amateur players, who come together to play large scale orchestral repertoire, to a high standard.
