Conductors

The Musician’s Photographer

Matthew Lloyd-Wilson

Matthew Lloyd Wilson is a British conductor and musician whose career has developed rapidly, marked by international recognition and a wide-ranging portfolio spanning professional, semi-professional, amateur, and educational ensembles. In 2025 he won the International Hans Swarowsky Conducting Competition in Milan. He is also appointed the youngest ever Principal Conductor of the University of Southampton Symphony Orchestra, where he trains an assistant conductor each year. His current season takes him to Italy, Serbia, Albania, Czechia, Bulgaria, Portugal, and France.

  • Alongside his work at Southampton, he has built an active freelance conducting profile across the UK. He works with ensembles including the Winchester Chamber Orchestra, Claude Powell Chamber Orchestra, Mark Fitz Gerald Light Orchestra, Southwark Sinfonietta, Southern Pro Musica, and Kingston Sinfonia, as well as Surrey Music Academy Symphony Orchestra, Guildford Youth Symphony Orchestra, Guildford Opera, and Surrey County Youth Orchestra. His work moves comfortably between symphonic repertoire, educational projects, light music programming, and film music inspired programming.

    His musical journey began early and unusually publicly. At the age of eleven he performed during the global broadcast of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, watched by an audience of over two billion people. This was followed by a BBC Proms debut at twelve and his first public concert as a conductor at thirteen. Since then, he has performed in the presence of figures including the late Queen Elizabeth II, HRH King Charles III, Pope Benedict XVI, Barack Obama, and the 14th Dalai Lama. These experiences helped shape a calm and focused presence on the podium.

    He was a music scholar at Winchester College and went on to lead both the Hampshire and Surrey Youth Orchestras before focusing professionally on violin and conducting alongside studies in Mechanical Engineering at university. That analytical training continues to inform his approach to rehearsal planning and score study.

    Music education remains central to his work. He is Music Director of the Guildford Youth Symphony Orchestra, which he has developed into a self-sustaining charity providing free orchestral training to more than two hundred young musicians each year. He is active as a professor on the National String Course, an ensembles coach at the Royal Grammar School Guildford, and an adjudicator for the Haslemere International String Competition.

    As a violinist, he has appeared at the Royal Albert Hall alongside artists such as YUNGBLUD, Ed Sheeran, Liam Gallagher, Madness, and Don Broco. His performance work has also supported major fundraising projects, including raising over two million pounds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Offstage, he continues to collaborate creatively, including recent narration work in Jonathan Willcocks orchestral setting of How the Whale Got His Throat by Rudyard Kipling.

Marc Dooley

Musical Director of the Fulham Symphony Orchestra since 2001, Marc Dooley has enjoyed conducting many exciting and ambitious projects, including broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, performances of the large-scale symphonic repertoire, concertos with leading soloists and much contemporary music.

  • He is often invited to work as a guest with other orchestras, and works regularly as an ensemble and chamber music coach with students of all ages.

    A clarinettist by training, Marc studied at Trinity College of Music and the University of York.

    He sits on the board of the charity Contemporary Music for All for whom he has edited the ‘Open Score’ anthologies, and has enjoyed a parallel career in music publishing with a special interest in the music of our time.

Brian Choi

Brian Choi is a conductor from Hong Kong, now based in London. He studied at Diocesan Boys’ School, and later at Guildhall School of Music with Prof Tim Redmond and Dominic Wheeler. Brian held the Junior Fellowship in Conducting at the Guildhall School of Music in 2023, assisting guest conductors such as Lionel Bringuier, Roberto Gonzalez Monjas with symphonic projects at the Barbican Centre..

  • Since the fellowship, Brian has been in demand as assistant conductor to many top-level international conductors and institutions, including Tan Dun with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Beethoven 9 Subscription concert and Decca recording), Roberto Gonzalez-Monjas with Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra(Subscription concert), National Radio Orchestra Romania (Subscription concert), etc. Most recently, Brian has been selected by Maestro Daniel Harding to take part in the YMCG Festival in China as Conducting Fellow and public masterclass student, in which he conducted Mahler’s First Symphony.  Brian maintains a busy schedule for various guest conducting engagements with different orchestras in UK, Europe, and Asia.

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    In the operatic field, Brian has been on the music staff for London Opera Company’s productions of Wagner operas since 2023 as assistant/ off-stage conductor, productions including: Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, and Tristan in 2026. Brian’s passion for the Wagnerian repertoire has led him to be selected by the Wagner Society UK and Richard Wagner Stipendienstiftung, as a Bayreuth Stipendiat 2025.  In the 25/26, Brian is involved in three productions of Wagner's Die Walküre, taking him across the UK, Europe, and China.  Brian was previously on the Royal Opera House Jette Parker Artist Conductor observership scheme, and the Saluzzo Italian Opera Academy as a Conductor funded by Lily Niblock Memorial Scholarship.

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    In 2022, Brian founded the Sutton Philharmonic Orchestra, based in Great Sutton Street, where he is also Music Director. Together, they have performed works by Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, and Wagner. Particular highlights include a semi-staged performance of Bach’s St John Passion on Palm Sunday 2024, and well-received performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde Prelude and Liebestod.  Future plans include a revival of Hans Pftizner's Three Preludes to 'Palestrina', which haven't been played in London since the 1925 Proms concert!

William Birkbeck

William Birkbeck is a dynamic conductor whose performances have taken him across the UK, Europe, and the USA, leading ensembles including Cameristi della Scala in Milan, the Sofia Philharmonic, the Franz Haydn Orchestra at the Vienna Musikverein, and the Czech Chamber Philharmonic. He is currently Music Director and Head Conductor of the Holborn Symphony Orchestra and Guest Conductor of the Bath Symphony Orchestra, having previously served as Assistant Conductor with London’s Orpheus Sinfonia.

  • Alongside his work with professional orchestras, William has developed strong relationships with leading amateur ensembles, regularly conducting the London Repertoire Orchestra, I Maestri London, and the Reading Symphony Orchestra. He greatly values the passion and commitment of these orchestras and the opportunity to bring ambitious repertoire to a wide community of players and audiences. William is the recipient of several international awards, including third prize and the Award for Contemporary Creation at the Vienna International Conducting Competition, where he conducted the premiere of Rainer Bischof’s Fünf Orchesterminiaturen. He also received the Maurice Peress Young Conductors Award in New York and was awarded a fellowship at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice for contemporary performance. Also an accomplished clarinettist, William has toured extensively as both a soloist and orchestral musician across the USA, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and North Africa, and has collaborated with composers including Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, Peter Eötvös, and Eric Tanguy.