Nicholas Daniel & Julius Drake
Biography Nicholas Daniel & Julius Drake
Nicholas Daniel
OBE has long been acknowledged as one of the world’s great oboists and is one of Britain’s best-known musicians. He has significantly enlarged the repertoire for his instrument with the commissioning of hundreds of new works. He has also developed a varied and exciting conducting career alongside his playing, and both these aspects of his work are equally important to him.
Nicholas dedicates his life to music in many varied ways. He records and broadcasts widely, he recently signed an exclusive contract with Chandos Records, and he boasts a huge following internationally on social media and on Streaming Apps such as Spotify and Apple Music. He is proud to support and patronise many important initiatives, charities and trusts, and has directed several music festivals and concert series, most notably in Germany and at Dartington, and has been Music Director of the Leicester International Music Festival and lunchtime series for many years. He is highly sought after as a teacher, having been Professor at the Trossingen Musikhochschule in Germany for more than 20 years.
As a conductor he made his BBC Proms conducting debut in 2004, and he works with many fine ensembles in hugely wide-ranging repertoire from Baroque to contemporary, from smaller groups to opera. He is Music Director of the Orion Orchestra in the UK, which bridges the gap for young musicians between Conservatoire-level education and the music profession. In recognition of his achievements, he was honoured in 2012 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with the prestigious Queen’s Medal for Music and cited as having made “an outstanding contribution to the musical life of the nation”. In October 2020 he was awarded an OBE and in 2022 was awarded the Cobbett Medal for Chamber Music by the Musicians’ Company.
Having sung as in the choir of Salisbury Cathedral as a boy, Nicholas was put directly into the spotlight at the age of 18 when he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. After a short period of study at London’s Royal Academy of Music, with Janet Craxton and Celia Nicklin and then privately with clarinettist Anthony Pay and with Hans Keller, he quickly established his career with early debuts at the BBC Proms and on disc.
He has been a concerto soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, performing a huge range of repertoire from Bach to Xenakis and beyond, premiering works written for him by hundreds of composers including Eleanor Alberga, Harrison Birtwistle, Henri Dutilleux, James MacMillan, Thea Musgrave, Outi Tarkiainen, John Tavener and Michael Tippett, as well as encouraging many younger composers to write for the oboe. His recording of concertos by Vaughan Williams and MacMillan was awarded the BBC Music Magazine Premiere Award in 2016, and the Vaughan Williams chosen as the best recording of the work in Gramophone in June 2023. He recently premiered and recorded a new Cor Anglais concerto, Milky Ways, by Outi Tarkianien.
As chamber musician Nicholas is a founder member of the award-winning Britten Sinfonia, the Haffner Wind Ensemble, Orsino, and the Britten Oboe Quartet, whose debut disc was released to great acclaim on the Harmonia Mundi label. He also works regularly with the pianists Huw Watkins and Julius Drake, and with many leading string quartets including the Carducci, Doric and Vogler. He is principal oboist of Camerata Pacifica, California’s leading chamber music ensemble, and is a popular guest at music festivals all over the world.
Nicholas Daniel plays Lorée Étoile Oboes and Royale English Horns from De Gourdon, Paris.
Julius Drake
ives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc. His passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for Wigmore Hall, London; The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; 92nd Street Y, New York; and the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin. He curates an annual series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London. Julius Drake is Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London and he is regularly invited to give masterclasses worldwide.
Julius Drake’s many recordings include a widely acclaimed series with Gerald Finley for Hyperion Records of which ‘Songs by Samuel Barber’, ‘Schumann: Dichterliebe & other Heine Settings’ and ‘Britten: Songs & Proverbs of William Blake’ won the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Gramophone Awards; recordings with Ian Bostridge and Alice Coote for EMI; with Joyce DiDonato, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Matthew Polenzani for Wigmore Live; and with Anna Prohaska for Alpha. Julius Drake’s recording of Janáček’s ‘The Diary of One Who Disappeared’, with tenor Nicky Spence and mezzo-soprano Václava Housková for Hyperion Records, won both the Gramophone and the BBC Music Magazine Awards in 2020.
Concerts this season include recitals at La Scala, Milan and the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid with Ludovic Tézier; return visits to the Boulez Saal Berlin for the series ‘Lied und Lyrik’; a recital tour in the USA with Ian Bostridge; the complete Mahler songs in five recitals in the Mahler Festival at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; recitals at the Opera Liceu in Barcelona with Gerald Finley, Sarah Connolly and Irene Theorin; return visits to the Chamber Music Festivals of Santa Fe, West Cork and Oxford; concerts in Berlin and at the Aldeburgh Festival with Andrè Schuen; piano duet recitals with Elisabeth Leonskaja in Austria, including at the Schubertiade Festival; recitals in the USA and Europe with Fleur Barron, Mercedes Gancedo, Christopher Prégardien, Julia Kleiter Anna Prohaska and Roderick Williams,; and at Wigmore Hall, London the Season Opening concert celebrating the Fauré Anniversary, as well as recitals with Alice Coote, Stuart Jackson, Sofia Fomina and Brindley Sherratt.
