A profile of Charles Hazlewood

Charles Hazlewood occupies a unique position in British musical life. The combination of his outstanding musical talent and versatility as a conductor, and his passion for bringing classical music to the widest possible audience, has led to a significant profile as a conductor in the broadcast media, and on the world stage.

Hazlewood won first prize at the European Broadcasting Union Conducting Competition in 1995. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2003 and his BBC Proms debut in 2006. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, and guest-conducts many leading orchestras in the UK and abroad.

Ever since the formation of his orchestra Excellent Device (previously Eos) in 1991, Hazlewood has blazed a trail in new ways of approaching music for which he is now well known; through talking to his audience live on stage, collaborating with other art forms (sculpture, film etc), and playing in unconventional settings. He also has a sister orchestra – Army of Generals – which comprises the cream of period instrumentalists who have featured in many of his BBC films about composers.

In 2008 he founded The Charles Hazlewood All Stars (including Goldfrapp's Will Gregory, Portishead's Adrian Utley and saxophonist Andy Sheppard), an ensemble dedicated to improvisation (Glastonbury, The Glade, European electronic music festivals).

From 2000-7 Hazlewood was Music Director of Dimpho di Kopane in Cape Town. For them he devised the music for The Mysteries, The Beggar's Opera, The Snow Queen (West End and worldwide), and was conductor of their feature film U Carmen e-Khayelitsha which won Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival 2005.

As part of his mission to engage the maximum number of people with music, Hazlewood has authored and conducted the music in multiple TV films on Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and this year a landmark series for BBC2 "The Birth of British Music". He regularly performs open-heart surgery on great music with the BBC Orchestras for Radio 3's Discovering Music, and hosts The Charles Hazlewood Show on Radio 2 exploring his vast and all embracing music tastes, in sessions recorded on his farm in Somerset. The show has won Hazlewood 3 Sony Awards.

This August Bank Holiday Hazlewood unveils his newest venture: Play The Field - a weekend festival featuring both his orchestras on his farm in Somerset.