Our guest mentor on The Talent final tonight is word-renowned conductor Richard Davis! Read more about Richard below.

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‘The authoritative and adaptive baton of Richard Davis…the listener was swept along with the sheer vigour and colour of the performance…Davis impresses as the maestro perhaps most finely attuned to the spirit of the composer’s music: his near balletic gestures drew out the radiance and coruscating resonances in the music in vivid display…impressive’.

Limelight

Richard is Chief Conductor and Head of Orchestral Studies at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. He regularly conducts orchestras, such as the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic, in concerts, recordings, national radio broadcasts and on television. Richard has also directed operas and requiem masses with the BBC Singers.

Richard is also in great demand, conducting professional orchestras, at major rock events with chart-topping groups such as The 1975 and Clean Bandit. The former recently won the BBC Music Award for ‘Best Live Performance of 2016’ and the latter was subsequently made into a Warner Music CD and DVD – New Eyes – that stayed in the top 40 UK Album Charts for months.

Recent conducting collaborations have also included working with Oscar-winning and ‘Gravity’ composer Steve Price, on a WW1 tribute for BBC television shown every year, across the BBC network, on Remembrance Day. Poppies was nominated for a BAFTA in 2015.

Richard Davis is also known as a flute player – having played as principal flute with the BBC Philharmonic for over 30 years. He premiered flute concertos by Bernstein and Maxwell-Davies, recorded and performed solo recitals many times on national and international broadcasts and won 1st prize in several international competitions.

Richard’s book: Becoming an Orchestral Musician – A Guide for Aspiring Professionals (published by Faber) sells world-wide and has been described as ‘an unbeatable-value master class’ (Classical Music Magazine) containing ‘Brilliance and honesty on every page’ (Pan Magazine) covering a ‘down-to-earth, informative introduction to life as a professional musician’ (Daily Telegraph).

Tune in to The Talent final tonight at 7pm! Listen at 103.5FM, or watch the video livestream at the 3MBS Facebook Page!