Colin Touchin
Musical Director
Colin Touchin, conductor and composer, set up the National Youth Recorder Orchestra in 2002 with the support of the SRP.
He is Conductor of Warwickshire County Youth Orchestra and Derbyshire City and County Youth Wind Band, Associate Conductor of London Charity Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of Essex Chamber Orchestra (ECHO), conductor of Heart of the England Recorder Orchestra (HERO), and Artistic Director of the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of Hong Kong; in his home-town Coventry he recently founded Spires Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus combining professional and amateur musicians.
As the Director of Music at the University of Warwick for over fourteen years he conducted six of the twenty ensembles (including a 90-piece symphony orchestra, 250-voice chorus and the international award-winning Chamber Choir) including Mahler Symphony of a Thousand, all Beethoven’s symphonies in one day, and operas by Gluck, Tchaikovsky and Bizet; collaborations between the ensembles and the London Mozart Players and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra were highlights. Prior to this position, he was Head of Composition and staff conductor at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester; for nine years he conducted ensembles at Dartington International Summer School; and he has conducted the National Youth Wind Orchestras of Britain, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Wales.
On the last two Christmas Eves he has conducted the open-air Concert in the Park in Hong Kong broadcast live on tv and radio over half of Asia. Colin has commissioned and premiered many new works and gained many awards with orchestras, choirs and bands, and he has founded several ensembles, including Warwick Orchestral Winds and the NYRO.
His compositions have been broadcast on national and local radio and television, and he has led workshops in conducting, clarinet, recorder, teaching, composition and adjudication in over twenty countries. Achieving the performer’s diploma on the recorder at the early age of 16 he has been a member of the Society of Recorder Players since he was 10 years old, and has written substantially for solo, chamber and orchestral ensembles of recorders, many of which works are performed all over the world.