John Anderson

John was born in Belfast in 1957. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, later reading for a master's degree at the University of Leeds. As a student, John freelanced with most of the leading orchestras in the UK, including the Ulster Orchestra, 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 the 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 Principal Lecturer in Performance at Leeds College of Music.

At Leeds College of Music John teaches conducting and is principal conductor of the Symphony Orchestra. With this orchestra he has worked with many eminent soloists including Raphael Wallfisch, Kathryn Stott, Lynne Dawson, Alexandra Wood, Vanya Milanova, Marat Bisengaliev, Katie Flowers and BBC Young Musician of the year 1996, Rafal Payne.

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. In 2004 John was presented with a Gold Disc representing sales in excess of 100,000 copies in the UK. ‘Brassed Off’ is frequently shown on Film Four and Channel Four.

In April 2004 John was appointed principal guest conductor of the Uralsk Philharmonic Orchestra, a professional string orchestra from west Kazakhstan. He toured with the UPO in the UK during Easter 2005. John was invited to conduct the Kazakh State Symphony Orchestra in 2005, working with young Kazakh soloists and giving the Kazakh première of Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5. John returned to Almaty in 2006 to conduct the Kazakh State Wind Orchestra. Also in 2006, John formed the Yorkshire Chamber Orchestra, Yorkshire’s newest professional orchestra.

In June 2007, John was invited to conduct the Leeds Philharmonic Chorus in a performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, in Leeds Town Hall. He returns to conduct the choir later this year, when they will be performing ‘The Armed Man’, by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins.