Nicholas Daniel (born 9 January 1962) is a British oboist and conductor. He won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition at eighteen and has since become one of the United Kingdom's most distinguished soloists. He is a founding member of the Haffner Wind Ensemble and the Britten Sinfonia.
At his debut at the BBC Proms in 1992, when in his twenties, The Sunday Times described Nicholas Daniel as one of the greatest exponents of the oboe in the world. Today, one of the UK's most distinguished soloists as well as an increasingly successful conductor, he has become an important ambassador for music and musicians in many different fields.
Educated at Salisbury Cathedral School, where he was a chorister, the Purcell School for gifted young musicians and at the Royal Academy of Music, Nicholas Daniel studied with Irene Pragnell, George Caird, Janet Craxton and Celia Nicklin. At the age of 18, he was the winner of the BBC's prestigious Young Musician of the Year Competition. He went on to win major prizes at several other competitions, including the International Double Reed Society competition in Graz, and the Munich International Oboe Competition, where he was the first ever - and only - British prize-winner. On leaving the Royal Academy in 1983, he played as solo oboe with many of Britain's foremost chamber and symphony orchestras, but in 1990, however, he decided to concentrate solely on solo playing and chamber music, and, more recently, on conducting.
He has been heard in recital on every continent, and has been a concerto soloist with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Britten Sinfonia, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the Israel Sinfonietta, the Netherlands and Bavarian Radio Orchestras, the Orquestro Sinfonico di Rio, the European Union Chamber Orchestra and the Budapest Strings, under such conductors as Sir Roger Norrington, Oliver Knussen, Richard Hickox, Sakary Oramo, Tadaaki Otaka and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Additionally, he has been a guest artist with all the BBC orchestras. Since his debut at the Promenade Concerts, he has appeared there on several occasions, performing Strauss Oboe Concerto; the world premiere of John Woolrich's Oboe Concerto, which was commissioned by the BBC; and Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses. He appeared in the 2003 season in Thea Musgrave's Helios, a work written especially for him. He made his conducting debut at the Proms in 2004 in the Chamber series with the Britten Sinfonia.
An active chamber musician, Nicholas Daniel is a founder member of the Haffner Wind Ensemble, one of the pre-eminent wind ensembles in Britain. Other chamber music affiliations include highly celebrated and successful 22-year collaboration with pianist Julius Drake, as well as regular appearances with the Maggini and Lindsay String Quartets.
He was Artistic Director of the Osnabrück Chamber Music Days in Germany from 2001-2004. In 2002 he was appointed Associate Artistic Director of the Britten Sinfonia, the ground-breaking chamber orchestra based in Cambridge, as well as Artistic Director of the Isle of Wight, now Barbirolli/lsle of Man, International Oboe Competition, and in 2003 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Leicester International Music Festival in the UK. He is a member of the UK Arts Council in the East of England where he makes his home.
Recent performances include conducting and performing engagements in Melbourne (Australia), at the Aldeburgh Festival, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo, Bruckner's Fourth Symphony with the Leicester Symphony Orchestra in Leicester and Paris, concerts with the Haffner Wind Ensemble in the UK including at the Wigmore Hall, concerts conducting and directing the Britten Sinfonia with pianist Rolf Hind, a master course near Venice, conducting at the 2004 Proms, his conducting debut at the Philharmonie in Berlin and 6 concerts conducting and playing with the Britten Sinfonia to celebrate 100 years since the birth of Michael Tippett.
He has been an important force in the creation and performance of new repertoire for oboe. Together with Julius Drake, he has premiered works by Henri Dutilleux, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Sir Michael Tippett, Nigel Osborne and John Woolrich as well as many other distinguished composers. With the English Chamber Orchestra, he gave the world premiere of the orchestral version of Britten's Temporal Suite at the 1994 Aldeburgh Festival; and with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra the world premiere of Musgrave's Helios at the St Magnus Festival. Additionally, composers such as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, John Tavener, Oliver Knussen, Michael Berkeley and David Matthews have written pieces especially for him. Currently, John Tavener is composing a major work for oboe and strings for Nicholas Daniel as well as a song cycle for oboe, tenor and piano, Jonathan Harvey is writing a concerto and Thea Musgrave is writing a double concerto for oboe, percussion and orchestra for the BBC Proms that will feature Daniel with Evelyn Glennie.
A committed teacher, Nicholas Daniel was appointed Professor of Oboe and Chamber Music at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama at age 23. He served as Professor of Oboe at the Indiana University School of Music from 1997-99, and is now a Fellow of both the Guildhall School and the Royal Academy of Music. He was appointed Prince Consort Professor at the Royal College of Music, London from 1999-2002 and in 2004 took up the post of Professor at the Trossingen Musikhochschule in Germany.
He can be heard on more than 30 recordings for such labels as Virgin Classics, Chandos, BMG Conifer and Leman Classics, most recently in Bliss's Oboe Quintet on Naxos with the award winning Maggini Quartet, in the music of John Tavener with Fretwork on Harmonia Mundi USA, and with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Richard Hickox in concertos by Michael and Lennox Berkeley, which recording was BBC Record Review's Disc of the Week.
In 1979 Daniel toured Australia with the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra, playing in Melbourne, in Canberra for the Governor General, and as part of the first British orchestra to play in the fledgling Sydney Opera House. He nearly remained in Sydney when he could not find the $10 exit tax at the airport and had to borrow from flautist Matthew Fuller.
Daniel has formed a duo with pianist Julius Drake that dates from 1981.[1] He was Professor of Oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for 10 years, then in 1997 became Professor of Oboe and Conducting at the Indiana University School of Music. He then was invited to be Prince Consort Professor of Oboe at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2004, he was named Professor of Oboe at the Musikhochschule in Trossingen, Germany.
Nicholas Daniel is the Principal Oboist for Britten Sinfonia, frequently appearing as a member of the orchestra and also as a soloist/director. Britten Sinfonia released its first own label recording in March 2009, which features Nicholas Daniel in John Tavener's Songs of the Sky.
Daniel has commissioned and premiered many new works for the oboe, to increase its status as a solo instrument. Such works include:
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