TOM HAMMOND

“Hammond drew from the orchestra both the score's joyousness and grim affirmation...This was an awesome performance.”

                                Midlands Music Reviews, January 2020

 

"A serious contender for most promising maestro of his generation."

                                                                 Musical Opinion, 2017

 

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London-based conductor Tom Hammond is known for his exciting and thoughtful programming and broad repertoire. Tom is equally at home working with top-flight international artists as he is conducting leading non-professional and youth orchestras. Recent soloists with whom he has performed include pianist Stephen Hough, clarinettist Emma Johnson, cellists Steven Isserlis and Matthew Sharp, violinists Ray Chen, Tamsin Waley-Cohen and David Le Page, and French horn player Ben Goldscheider.

 

Tom received mentorship from the late Sir Charles Mackerras. and has given many first performances of new music by, amongst others, Matthew Taylor, James Francis Brown and Bernard Hughes. A CD of world première recordings of music for families, conducted by Tom with Orchestra of the Swan and narrated by Alexander Armstrong, was released on the Orchid Classics label in February 2020, with music by Hughes, Judith Weir, Malcolm Arnold and John Ireland.

 

A champion of music-making outside the capital, Tom is Co-Artistic Director and founder of the Hertfordshire Festival of Music. Launched in 2016, it has rapidly grown to become one of the leading celebrations of classical music in the UK, featuring major artists and ensembles alongside innovative outreach work, and winning major support from Arts Council England.

 

Since 2011 Tom has regularly visited the Middle East to conduct ensembles from the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, Palestine, including the Palestine Youth Orchestra. He has also adjudicated for the Palestine National Music Competition and, closer to home, for the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Oxford University, Trinity Laban Conservatoire and the Croydon Performing Arts Festival.

 

Tom’s work as a producer with Chiaro Audio has led to releases with Resonus Classics and First Hand Records, and forthcoming releases with Edition Peters Label. He was appointed an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2010, and Conductor Emeritus of London’s Sinfonia Tamesa in 2019.

 

(Tom Hammond, October 2021)