Michael Downes

Biography

People Instrumental and vocal teachers Honorary Professors You are here: University >Music Centre >People « Back to People Michael Downes Michael Downes Director of Music E: mjd14@st-andrews.ac.uk T: +44(1334)46 2226 Michael Downes MA MPhil DPhil Michael Downes became the University's first full-time Director of Music in 2008, having previously held a similar post at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He read English and Music at King's College, Cambridge and completed a doctorate on Debussy at the University of Sussex. He studied the cello with teachers including Ioan Davies and Timothy Mason and conducting with teachers including Lionel Friend and Colin Metters. Before moving to Scotland, he conducted numerous choral, operatic, orchestral and contemporary-music groups in London and the South-East. For the Music Centre he conducts the St Andrews Chamber Orchestra, which brings together the best players from the University community: recent performances have included Beethoven's final three symphonies and the world premiere of Sally Beamish's North Sea Edge, commissioned to mark the University's 600th anniversary. In 2009 he founded Byre Opera, whom he has subsequently conducted in annual productions including Britten's Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Handel's Acis and Galatea. He also conducts the town-gown St Andrews Chorus, now the largest choral society in Scotland with over 175 singers. He was one of the founding artistic directors, with Sonia Stevenson, of St Andrews Voices, a new festival of vocal music which was launched in October 2012.

Research Interest

Music.