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This is a work I have known for many years and conducted whilst an undergraduate at Oxford. Gardiner is by far the leading figure for me in the historical performance movement when it comes to choral music. Although there are many others now ‘in the market’ he really was the trailblazer at a time when this style of performance was still an emerging area of interest. Whilst we can never know exactly what this sounded like in Bach’s time, the clarity of sound and the sense of direction in each phrase certainly makes this recording truly authentic for me.

Although there are a number of inspirational conductors working today, I have looked as much to the ‘great’ conductors of the first half of the 20th Century for inspiration for my own style. Carlos Kleiber is, for me, one of the greatest conductors and I feel that if one recording of Beethoven’s monumental Fifth and Seventh symphonies was to be definitive then this is it. Working in an age when technology was still evolving and was way off where we are today, this recording is itself an important historical document showing how music and performance has developed and continues to do so.

Romeo and Juliet is one of the all time greats of the ballet world. Whilst this is an enormously rich and varied repertoire, especially the contribution that Russian composers made to this genre, Prokofiev’s telling of this classic love tale is by far and above the most moving and emotional musical telling for me. I was first moved by Michael Tilson Thomas’s insightful rendering of this colossal work when I heard it live in San Francisco and, having got to know the work both through the recording and my association with him, use this recording as the starting point for my own take on this canonic masterpiece.

Contemporary music occupies an important place in my musical life and within that field John Adams is a torch bearer for countless composers active in the 20th and now 21st Centuries. These seminal works are brought to life by Sir Simon Rattle and the CBSO with such rhythmic drive and energy that you can’t help but be swept along with it.

As I originally came to music and conducting through the church sacred choral music will always have a special place in my heart. Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius speaks to me on a number of levels, partly due to my own background as a Roman Catholic but also as I spent a year at Worcester Cathedral where one could not help but live and breathe Elgar all around you. My respect for the late Vernon Handley is enormous, especially as a man who devoted himself to the championing of British music in a world where even today it is still a niche area. I was very privileged to know him in his later years and spent many a happy hour talking about scores. His understanding of scores and their intimate detail was overwhelming, a feature that comes across in great abound in this profoundly moving work.