St Magnus Festival - Course Participants

2007 Orkney Conducting Course participants
	Christian Baldini (Argentina) has received numerous awards as a composer and a conductor in international competitions including the Seoul International Competition for Composers (South Korea, 2005), the Tribune of Argentinean Music (UNESCO, 2005) and the Sao Paulo State Orchestra International Conducting Competition (OSESP, Brazil , 2006). His music has been performed in festivals and venues throughout Europe , South America , North America and Asia by orchestras and ensembles such as the SouthBank Sinfonia (London), Chronophonie Ensemble (Freiburg), the Barton Workshop (Amsterdam) and the New York Virtuoso Singers. Recently selected as the first Assistant Conductor of the Britten-Pears Orchestra, he has worked with orchestras in South America, Europe and North America. In August 2007 he will begin his appointment as Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra of the State University of New York at Buffalo.
	Jessica Cottis (Australia/UK) graduated with First Class honours from the Australian National University before continuing her studies in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain. She was subsequently awarded the E. Power Biggs and Whalley Awards to study for a MMus in Organ at the Royal Academy of Music. Recipient of numerous prizes, she has given recitals across North America, Europe and Australasia and recently recorded for the RAM/SSLSO label, as broadcast on BBC radio 3. She is currently postgraduate conducting student at the Royal Academy, where she studies with Colin Metters, George Hurst and Sir Colin Davis. Highlights of the last year include working as assistant to Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Sydney Opera House, performances with the Vorpommern Symphoniker, and a production of Le nozze di Figaro as Artistic Director of the King's Opera. Future engagements include Die Zauberflöte with British Youth Opera and Verdi's Un ballo in maschera in Bulgaria.
	Michael Francis (UK) began conducting at university and now enjoys a busy career ranging from conducting amateur orchestras to the London Symphony Orchestra, where he has been a member since 2003. For the LSO, Michael has conducted rehearsals, commercial and education work, and in January 2007, he was asked, (with 12 hours notice), to replace an indisposed Valery Gergiev for the rehearsals and performance of music by Sofia Gubaidulina with the LSO at the Barbican Centre. On a tour of Luxembourg he was asked, (with only a couple of hours notice), to stand in for John Adams to conduct a concert of Adams' music with the LSO and soloist Leila Josefowicz: both concerts were critical successes. Michael has attended the Vienna Musikseminar conducting course where he was a double prizewinner in the final conducting competition, and he has participated in masterclasses with Jorma Panula. Future conducting engagements include TV and education work for the LSO.
	Akiko Fujimoto (Japan/USA) is currently the Music Director of the Mozart Society Orchestra at Harvard University . In 2006, she made her professional debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada as a participant in their Conductors Programme. She co-founded and co-directed New Music Ensemble Boston specializing in contemporary music for percussion and voice, and Canto Armonico, a chamber choir which performed music from the Renaissance to the 20th-century Anglican repertoire. She holds degrees from Boston University , Eastman School of Music, and Stanford University .
	Ryan S. Haskins (USA/UK) received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Orchestral Conducting from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. His conducting mentors include Dwight Oltman, Howard Williams and Peter Stark. He has conducted the Mozart Sinfonietta of Cleveland, the Baldwin-Wallace Contemporary and Summer Festival Orchestras, the Euclid Orchestra and the Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus. He has worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Tadaaki Otaka, Diego Masson, Krzysztof Penderecki, Jac van Steen, Paulo Olmi and Joseph Cullen. Recently he has conducted both the BBC's NOW and NCW, and the London Symphony Chorus.
	Steven Joyce graduated from City University and the Guildhall School of Music in 2001 following studies in timpani and percussion, composition and musicology. He began his conducting studies with Peter Stark and has since studied privately with Sir Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink and Janos Furst. Steven is the principal conductor of the City Side Sinfonia in London, and has also worked with the Ensemble-Orchestral de Paris, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Hertfordshire Philharmonia, the orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music, and soloists Alina Ibragimova, Thomas Gould and Guy Johnston. More recently he is fortunate to have received the support of Gianandrea Noseda and Vladimir Jurowski.
	Richard Lewis (UK) read music at Magdalen College, Oxford, and later completed a Master's degree at Edinburgh University, where he first started conducting seriously. He has worked as conductor and repetiteur at the National Theatre in Mannheim, Germany, and since August 2000 he has worked as assistant to Adam Fischer at the Haydn festival in Eisenstadt, Austria . He is currently musical director of Edinburgh Grand Opera and Opera on a Shoestring, Glasgow. In December 2004 Richard was assistant conductor in the Dutch National Opera's production of Mozart's Lucio Silla. He has also worked with Scottish Opera, with Edinburgh University orchestras, Edinburgh Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra education department (with the Edinburgh Secondary Schools Orchestra) and with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.
	Lucas Waldin (Canada) graduated last May with a Masters in Conducting from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Currently Director of the Cleveland Bach Consort and Assistant Conductor of Red (and orchestra), Waldin has also assisted the Cleveland Opera in their 2007 production of Salome. He collaborated with Ohio 's top musicians, including Joshua Smith and Sergei Babayan, and has twice been broadcase live on WCLV, Cleveland 's classical radio, in performances with the Cleveland Bach Consort and the CIM Orchestra. For the past two summers Waldin was a Discovery Series Conductor at the Oregon Bach Festival.