Before transitioning to tech, I was incredibly privileged to have an award-winning career as a conductor, regularly working with opera houses, ballet companies and orchestras in Europe, Australasia and North America.
I was the Music Director of Symphony Nova Scotia until 2025, a partnership that attracted acclaim for our bold programming, strategic acumen and championing of local artists from diverse musical backgrounds. Over the years I have recorded for BBC Radio 3, CBC and Radio NZ, and my first major commercial recording with Decca, a collaboration with Isata Kanneh-Mason and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, reached #1 on the UK classical charts. Over 15 years, music took me to nearly every continent on the planet, performing for audiences spanning from the British Royal Family and Europe’s political elites, to Scotland’s homeless and refugee communities.
My performance work encompassed all forms of music direction from opera, ballet and family concerts, to full scale symphonic programmes. In my final seasons I conducted the Prague Radio Symphony, London Symphony, Philharmonia, NZ Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, London Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, as well as most of the BBC Orchestras. In the theatre, I worked with Danish Royal Ballet, Opera North, Scottish Ballet, Scottish Opera, English Touring Opera and New Zealand Opera. Recording and broadcasting credits include the Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera North.
2018 saw the inaugural tour of the innovative Nevis Ensemble, of which I was founding Co-Artistic Director with my husband Jon Hargreaves until the organisation expanded in 2022, a project built on the maxim that "music is for everyone, everywhere”. In the first two years of our joint tenure, the orchestra gave 170 free performances to around 25,500 people all across Scotland, from farming communities in the Scottish Borders to the summit of Ben Nevis in the Highlands, and including the most comprehensive tour of the Outer Hebrides by an orchestra, which even saw the ensemble perform on Hirta, in the remote archipelago of St Kilda.
I still accept occasional performance work that interests me, or with organisations with whom I enjoy a particularly strong relationship, such as the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. But my focus is now on supporting and coaching new generations of conductors. I have been a guest teacher and examiner at the Royal College of Music, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow University, Manchester University, and Otago University. I am particularly excited to be launching an online, on-demand learning platform in music leadership through Scordatura.
For all inquiries about conducting-related work, contact my agency, Music Inter Alia.