Airedale Symphony Orchestra
Conductor and Leader
JOHN
ANDERSON was born in Belfast in 1957. He studied at the
Royal Academy of Music in London, later reading for his MMus at the
University of Leeds. he studied timpani and percussion with
James Blades and Nicholas Cole and, as a student, freelanced with most
of the leading orchestras in the UK, including the Ulster orchestras,
BBC Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh Symphony Orchestras and
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
John
became principal timpanist of the Orchestra of Opera North in 1980. During this
time he became interested in conducting and was appointed principal
conductor of the Airedale Symphony Orchestra in 1982. John was a
participant in the second Leeds conductors’ competition in 1986 and
later that year made his professional conducting débût in a concert
given at Harewood House. John left Opera North in 1989 to become
the principal conductor of the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. With
Grimethorpe Band, John toured extensively throughout the UK, recorded
for the BBC and released several CDs.
John
now combines a successful freelance conducting career with that of
lecturer at Leeds
College of Music, where he teaches conducting and is principal
conductor of the LCM Symphony Orchestra. With this orchestra he
has worked with many eminent soloists including Raphael Wallfisch,
Kathryn Stott, Vanya Milanova, Marat Bisengaliev, Katie Flowers and
BBC Young Musician of the year 1996, Rafal Zambrisky-Payne. John’s
conducting career has been extremely varied and he has worked with
amateur/youth orchestras, choral societies, top-class brass bands and
professional symphony orchestras. He was associate conductor of
the world famous Black Dyke Band from 1991 to 1995 and toured with
them to New York in 1993, performing in Carnegie Hall and giving a
masterclass at the Julliard School of Music. John has also
recorded with the Hallé Orchestra
In 1995 John was the music director for the extremely
successful British-made feature film ‘Brassed
Off’, recording the soundtrack with the Grimethorpe Colliery
Band at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. John co-ordinated
the music scenes in the film and worked closely with the actors Pete
Postlethwaite, Ewan McGregor and Tara FitzGerald. A CD of the
soundtrack was released in 1996 and John has been awarded a Gold Disc
for sales in Australia, where the soundtrack remained No. 1 in
the classic charts for three months. John was presented with a Gold Disc representing sales in excess of
100,000 copies in the UK. ‘Brassed Off’ has been shown
several times on Channel Four.
In April 2004, John was appointed principal
guest conductor of the Uralsk
Philharmonic Orchestra , a
young professional string orchestra from west Kazakhstan. He toured
with the UPO in the UK earlier this year. Most recently, John made his
débût with the Kazakh State Symphony Orchestra and has been invited
to conduct the Kazakh State Wind Orchestra in February 2006. John has
recently founded the Yorkshire Chamber Orchestra, a professional
ensemble which will make its débût at the Grassington Festival in
June.
Contact JOHN ANDERSON
Leader
Jacqueline
Cima studied with Simon Fischer at the Royal Scottish
Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. As part of her final assessment
she performed the Sibelius violin concerto with the Royal Scottish
National Orchestra for which she was awarded the Bessie Spence prize
for violin. Jacqueline now lives in Yorkshire and works as a
professional freelance violinist playing regularly with leading
orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Opera North and
the Orchestra of Northern Ballet.
Jacqueline was appointed leader of the Airedale Symphony Orchestra in 2002. In January 2003 she gave a beautiful and dazzling account of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto with the ASO, and July 2004 she performed very beautifully at the Piece Hall in Halifax the Beethoven Romance in F, despite the accompaniment of raindrops!
