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Leader of the Orchestra

Michael is a RCM Joint Principal scholar, learning violin with Daniel Rowland and piano with Julian Jacobson. After one year’s study, he was awarded the Knights of the Round Table Award. He won the Tabor Award for Promising Talent at BBC Young Musician of the Year 2008.

Michael first performed as violin soloist with orchestra aged 8 in Edinburgh Festival Theatre. Since then, he has made concerto appearances with the Ayrshire, Hertford and Westbourne Symphony Orchestras, Azalea Ensemble, Junior Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Orchestra and Dorset Youth Orchestra. Leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for 2009, he has worked with Semyon Bychkov, Paul Daniel and Vasily Petrenko in the major UK concert halls (including the Royal Albert Hall for a BBC Prom). More recent projects include performing solo for Youth Music in the Houses of Parliament, leading Bernstein’s ‘Mass’ under Marin Alsop in Royal Festival Hall and shadowing the leader of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He was appointed leader of Amadeus Orchestra in 2011 and regularly receives invitations to lead ensembles including Charities Philharmonia, Les Voix Nouvelles and Camerata Scotland.  As a chamber musician, recent performance venues include Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Turner Gallery.

Since becoming a Keyboard Category finalist in BBC Young Musician of the Year 2008, Michael has also performed as pianist for Leeds International Concert Series, the International Federation of Festivals Showcase, ‘Schumann 200’ Festival at King’s Place and RCM’s ‘Poles Apart’, ‘Lisztomania’ and ‘Chamber Spotlight’ series. He receives solo and chamber music masterclasses on both instruments from performers including Gergely Bohnyani, Wolfgang Boettcher, Ian Fountain, the Graffin Trio, Lewis Kaplan, Steven Osborne, Susan Tomes, Pavel Vernikov and David Wilde.

Michael recently returned from an Erasmus exchange at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (Vienna), where he studied violin with Michael Frischenschlager and piano with Barbara Moser, performing in the Russisches Kulturinstitut and the Ehrbar Saal. He plays on a Joseph Rocca violin (1848) on kind loan from the RCM.