Nicholas Daniel - oboe
Biography
Nicholas Daniel’s long and distinguished career began when, at the age of 18, he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition and went on to win further competitions in Europe. At his debut at the BBC Proms in 1992 the Sunday Times described him as one of the greatest exponents of the oboe in the world. Today one of the UK's most distinguished soloists as well as a successful conductor, he has become an important ambassador for music and musicians in many different fields.
Nicholas has been heard on every continent, and has been a concerto soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, working under conductors such as Sakari Oramo, Sir Roger Norrington, Oliver Knussen, Richard Hickox , Jiri Belohlavek, David Robertson , Sir Mark Elder and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. In addition to his extensive experience in baroque and 19th-century music, he is an important force in the creation and performance of new repertoire for oboe, and has premiered works by composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Henri Dutilleux, Thea Musgrave, Nigel Osborne, John Tavener, James MacMillan and Sir Michael Tippett. In the Elliot Carter centenary year, Nicholas Daniel played this composer’s oboe concerto with the National Orchestra of Spain, the BBC Symphony Orchestra (at the BBC Proms) and the St Louis Symphony Orchestra. He is regularly invited to play in the Proms and such occasions have included the world premieres of John Woolrich's Oboe Concerto, of Thea Musgrave's Helios and her Two’s Company, written especially for him; he made his conducting debut at the Proms in 2004 in the Chamber series with the Britten Sinfonia.
An active chamber musician, Nicholas is a founder member of the Haffner Wind Ensemble and the Britten Oboe Quartet and enjoys a long history of collaboration with artists including the pianist Julius Drake and the Maggini and Lindsay string quartets. His duo with Julius Drake was described in The Independent as “vital, thoughtful and confirmed in musical integrity of the highest order.”
As a conductor, Nicholas has worked with orchestras in the UK and in Europe, most recently in Germany, Poland, Sweden and Finland; as Associate Artistic Director of the Britten Sinfonia he conducts and directs this award-winning orchestra regularly. He is oboist to the California-based chamber ensemble Camerata Pacifica and is Artistic Director of the Leicester International Festival. He teaches in the UK and in Germany, where is he Professor of Oboe at the Musikhochschule, Trossingen.
He has made frequent appearances at the Aldeburgh Festival and a plays regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall. Future engagements include his return to the Delft and Kuhmo Chamber Music Festivals and to the Wigmore Hall , concerts with the Haffner Wind Ensemble and Britten Oboe Quartet and performances in Europe and America, both North and South . In addition, Nicholas Daniel continues to work with the Britten Sinfonia as oboist and as conductor and appears regularly at many international and British festivals. The summer of 2010 sees his return to the BBC Proms in chamber music as well as appearances at the Risor, Delft and Kuhmo Festivals.
Link to Nicholas Daniel's own website: www.nicholasdaniel.co.uk
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