Jonathan Butcher

Jonathan Butcher has gained an enviable reputation as both a veratile and sensitive conductor. He has appeared at all the major London concert venues, including the Royal Albert Hall, South Bank, Barbican and St. John's Smith Square and has conducted orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,London Mozart Players, English Symphony Orchestra, New London Orchestra and the Guildford Philharmonic. Jonathan has worked with many soloists of international repute, including Dame Moura Lympany, Steven Isserlis, Marissa Robles, Julian Lloyd Webber and Peter Katin. Abroad he has worked with the Promenade Orchestra of Radio Hilversum, the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinlandplatz, the National Orchestra of Malta and has conducted 2 Hoffnung concerts in Munich as well as six New Year concerts in and around Ludwigshaven, Germany. He has subsequentlyreturned there to conduct a concert of film music with the renowned Jazz Singer Jocelyn B. Smith.

Jonathan is equally at home with the symphonic, operatic, choral and musical theatre repertoire and has a flair for communicating with audiences. He has conducted Family Concerts at Polesden Lacey and annually conducts their open-air Prom. Concert. He is the conductor of the IAPS National Chamber Orchestra and their national Symphony Orchestra. The latter give their final concert in the Snape Maltings. He conducted at the Royal College of Music for twelve years.

Jonathan has been Musical Director and Conductor of the Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra since 1985. He also directs the Westminster Philharmonic and Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestras. He has been Artistic Director of Surrey Opera for some thirty years most recently conductingand directing a, much acclaimed, production of Nicolai's, rarely heard, The Merry Wives of Windsor, for which he also wrote a new English translation.

He studied with such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Andre Previn and the great Strauss scholar, Norman del Mar. While studying at the RCM Jonathan won the Sir Adrian Boult Conducting Prize, on three successive occasions, the Sir Arthur Bliss Prize and a Leverhulme Studentship enabling him to atend the Berkshire Music Centre USA.

Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra is Registered Charity No.: 1029543