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 and St Andrews Opera, whom he has led in acclaimed productions of Britten's Rape of Lucretia and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. He also conducts the St Andrews Chorus, now one of the largest choirs in Scotland with over 150 singers.
Michael has lectured on opera and music for the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and English Touring Opera; for the Britten Sinfonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra; and for the Glyndebourne, Wexford and Edinburgh International festivals. He regularly reviews books on music and opera for the Times Literary Supplement; he has written a well-received book for Ashgate about the music of contemporary composer Jonathan Harvey, and has collaborated on books with Harvey and with Nike Wagner, great-granddaughter of Richard.
Michael is the module co-ordinator for MU1005 Reading Opera and contributes to several other modules both within and outside the Music Department.
He is one of the two artistic directors, with Sonia Stevenson, of St Andrews Voices, a new festival of vocal music which was launched in October 2012.