“… a conspicuously attentive and adept young conductor …”
The Herald

“… Conductor Michael Bawtree pulled all the intricate threads of this complex work together with consummate skill. This was a compelling and emotive performance …”
The Scotsman

Michael Bawtree is Chorus Director of the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union, Guest Conductor of Scottish Ballet, Music Director of Glasgow Chamber Choir and Assistant Music Director of the Lyrique-en-Mer Festival, Belle Ile, France. Michael has conducted the Orchestra of Scottish Opera and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and has worked with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra education department. He has also worked with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus (performing at Holyroodhouse in the presence of HRH The Duke of Rothesay), the Bury St Edmunds Festival Chorus and the Britten-Pears Chamber Choir and is in demand as a guest conductor of choirs throughout Scotland.

Michael was born in Devon and studied music at Cambridge University. He moved to Scotland in 2004 to take up a two-year postgraduate conducting scholarship at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Alongside his studies with Dr Alasdair Mitchell at the RSAMD, he worked with Joseph Swensen, Lutz Köhler, Martyn Brabbins and Ilan Volkov. In 2006 he was awarded his Master of Music degree with distinction.

Increasingly involved in opera, Michael has worked on productions of Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Don Pasquale in France, and Falstaff, Cendrillon and Flight at the RSAMD. He conducted Albert Herring and La Clemenza di Tito for Edinburgh Studio Opera and in 2006 premiered Gareth Williams’s one-act opera, Love in the Blue Corner. Michael was the recipient of the Wagner Society of Scotland’s annual scholarship which allowed him to attend performances at the 2006 Bayreuth Festival. Michael joined Scottish Ballet for their 2007 production of Cinderella and returned to the company for their 2008-09 productions of Romeo and Juliet and Sleeping Beauty, conducting 17 performances of the latter across the UK. He returns to conduct performances of Nutcracker this Christmas.

For five years Michael was Assistant Director of Music at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Suffolk. With the Cathedral Choir he broadcast frequently on BBC Radio and TV, toured to the USA twice and made three CD recordings. He has given solo organ recitals at over 20 British cathedrals and in Denmark, Sweden, Bermuda and across the United States. He was recently organ soloist for performances of Saint-Saens’ Organ Symphony with the RSNO at Glasgow’s magnificent Kelvingrove Museum. 


Click here to read a recent feature about Michael in the Herald

For further information see:  www.michaelbawtree.co.uk

Links:
Glasgow Chamber Choir www.glasgowchamberchoir.org.uk
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama www.rsamd.ac.uk
St Edmundsbury Cathedral www.stedscathedral.co.uk
Calcutta Chamber Orchestra www.csm.org.in/orchestra.html
Wagner Society of Scotland www.wagnerscotland.net