The orchestra has no set conductor. Instead a conductor is invited by the orchestra for a given performance. Not only does this stop a conductor getting stale, but provides a change for both the audience and the orchestra. Details of conductors that orchestra has experience of are detailed below.
Jacques Cohen
Jacques Cohen has been a regular conductor of Hertforshire Philharmonia since 2000. Jacques read music at Oxford where he conducted
the main university orchestra and performed several of his own
compositions. When leaving Oxford, he was awarded the Conducting
Scholarship at the Royal College of Music where he later won the
Tagore Gold Medal, the College's prize for its most outstanding
student. Since then he has won several other awards including
the August Manns Conducting Prize and the Constant and Kit Lambert
Award. He took First Prize in the British Reserve Conducting Competition
and was also a prize winner in the Leeds Conductors' Competition.
He then went on to work as Assistant Conductor to the London Symphony
Orchestra and later with the Royal Philharmonic and worked closely
with Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Neville Marriner, Vernon Handley
and Oliver Knussen.
He has conducted a highly successful series of concerts in Bucharest
with Romania's premier orchestra, the George Enescu Philharmonic
and has guest conducted orchestras throughout Europe and the UK.
He was for a period Principal Guest Conductor of the Bombay Orchestra
in India and is currently Principal Conductor of the Aylesbury
Orchestra and Lloyd's Choir. He has also been Musical Director
of several major opera productions and was appointed as Music
Director of the NPO in 2001.
He has recorded CD's for a variety of labels and broadcasts for
radio and television. He is also Visiting Professor of Conducting
at the Royal and Trinity Colleges of Music.
Jacques conducts an extremely wide repertoire from Monteverdi
to the present day and is a passionate advocate of music by living
composers. He is also an enthusiastic communicator and has a growing
reputation for his ability to explain music in an entertaining
way and get audiences more involved in concerts.
His many compositions include Quiet Music, which is regularly
performed by British and American orchestras;Three
Nottingham Dances, commissioned by the NPO and performed
to great acclaim; a Tuba Concerto; a one-act opera, Magic
Potions; and several award winning works for choir including
his dramatic setting of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
His Fantasias, Canons & Fugues and the prize winning
Elegy on a Floating Chord have been performed many times in
Europe and on both sides of the Atlantic.
Visit Jacques Cohen's web site
Patrick Bailey
Anthony Weeden
Anthony studied music at both the University of Durham (1993-6) and then the Royal College of Music (1997-1999) as a conductor.
At the end of his first year at Durham University, Anthony was appointed conductor of the Durham University Symphony Orchestra, keeping the post of his remaining two years. In 1997, Anthony won a scholarship to study conducting at the Royal College of Music. He studied with Neil Thompson, Edwin Roxburgh and John Carewe, took masterclasses with Daniele Gatti, Jorma Panula and Gerhard Markson, and prepared the RCM Symphony orchestra for the distinguished visits of Lorin Maazel and Daniele Gatti.
After winning the August Manns prize for conducting two years consecutively, he then became the first ever winner of the Norman Del Mar conducting prize in 1999, receiving one of the later Norman Del Mar's batons from Sir David Willcocks. Soon after graduating from the Royal College of Music in 1999, Anthony worked with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain as Orchestral Manager for a year, working behind the scenes with one of the largest and most exciting orchestras in the country.
In March 1999 Anthony was recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio 3, conducting the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra in Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune as part of the Youth Orchestra's of the world programme, and the same year by Lyric FM appearing with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (RTE) in the National Concert Hall, Dublin, conducting Brahms' First Symphony and then again the following year conducting Beethoven's Erioca Symphony.
As well as working as a freelance conductor throughout the UK, Anthony also performs internationally and has appeared in local and national television. Orchestras he has conducted include the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra, Hertfordshire Philharmonic Orchestra, Santa Clarita Valley Symphony (Los Angeles), and Horsham Symphony Orchestra amongst others. He is a staff conductor and teacher at the Royal Academy of Music, Junior Academy and also Trinity College of Music, London and is Musical Director if the contemporary music ensemble Avenue-a.
Earlier in 2002, Anthony was a Western Europe finalist of the prestigious Maazel/Vilar International Conducting Competition.
