John Farrer

John Farrer has been the music director of the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, California for 30 years. He is also music director of the Roswell Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Maria Philharmonic. Mr Farrer is a frequent guest with orchestras in England, and visits London on a regular basis in the capacity of guest conductor. As senior guest conductor of the English Sinfonia he has toured with the orchestra throughout England and northern France. His eight recordings with the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony and English Sinfonia have received high praise from critics around the world.

He has been associated with the San Francisco Symphony as a cover conductor for the orchestra's subscription concerts. Mr Farrer was a speaker in the San Francisco Symphony's series of Inside Music talks, led the orchestra in Concerts for Kids, and conducted a programme at Stern Grove which attracted 20,000 listeners.

John Farrer is director of the California Conducting Institute, a national training programme held in Bakersfield, California. Conductors from around the world participate in these annual workshops. Mr Farrer is also a member of the music advisory committee of the Young Musicians Foundation of Los Angeles.

John Farrer has been appointed a national trustee of the National Symphony Orchestra of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Neil Thomson

Neil Thomson studied conducting under Norman Del Mar at the Royal College of Music, London, and under Leonard Bernstein and Kurt Sanderling at Tanglewood.  Now widely regarded as one of the most outstanding British conductors of his generation he enjoys a busy career which takes him all over the world. He has established a reputation among his contemporaries as an orchestral trainer and interpreter of distinction.

In Britain he has conducted, amongst others, the LSO, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Halle, LPO and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with many distinguished soloists, including Sir James Galway, Sir Thomas Allen, Valentin Gheorgiou, Julian Lloyd Webber and Jean-Philippe Collard.

His skills as a natural communicator have enhanced an already growing reputation as a teacher throughout Europe; he was twice invited to teach at the EU-sponsored masterclasses in Vilnius and in 2004 was a Guest Professor at the Salzburg Mozarteum. In 2002 he was invited by Lorin Maazel to be on the jury, along with Maazel, for the European rounds of the Maazel/Vilar Conducting competition. In 2007 he was on the jury of the Eduardo Mata International Conducting Competition in Mexico City.