British conductor Martyn Brabbins is known for his affinity with music of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to which he brings a Romantic sensibility, an unerring sense of pace and an extraordinary ear for detail. He has conducted hundreds of world premieres by leading international composers, has championed British music at home and abroad, and has made over 120 recordings, including over fifty albums for Hyperion. After studying composition in London and then conducting with Ilya Musin in Leningrad, he won first prize at the 1988 Leeds Conductors’ Competition. Since then he has become a frequent guest with leading orchestras around the world, and has held a succession of titles, notably Associate Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (1994–2005), Principal Guest of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic (2009–2015) and Chief Conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic (2012–2016), remaining closely associated with all three.

Martyn is the Music Director of English National Opera, where he conducts a wide range of repertoire from Mozart to Richard Strauss and Birtwistle. He is also a regular visitor to the opera houses of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Lyon and Frankfurt, and has conducted at La Scala and the Bayerische Staatsoper. He has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and San Francisco Symphony, and is a favourite at the BBC Proms, where in 2014 he shared the podium with Elder, Norrington and Gardner, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the First Night.

Martyn Brabbins is an inspirational force in British music, and has contributed significantly over the years, conducting the major UK orchestras and appearing at the major British festivals. He was Artistic Director of the Cheltenham International Festival of Music from 2005 to 2007, and is currently Music Director to the Huddersfield Choral Society, with whom he has had a long association—one of the many ways in which he supports both professional and amateur music-making at the highest level in the United Kingdom. He is a leading advocate of British composers, and an inspiration to young conductors in his annual course at the St Magnus Festival on Orkney and in his position as Visiting Professor of Conducting at the Royal College of Music.