Born in Wrexham, North Wales, Robert is Mu­sical Dir­ector and co-founder of NEW Sin­fonia, Prin­cipal Con­ductor to the Or­chestra of Square Chapel and Mu­sical Dir­ector of Can­torion Rhos Choir. He was re­cently awarded the Orion Young Conductor’s Award, sup­ported by the Richard Carne Trust and has been in­vited to con­duct the Orion Sym­phony Or­chestra at the 2012 Aberys­twyth Mu­sical Festival. He was also se­lected as As­sistant Con­ductor to the Britten Pears Or­chestra working closely with Kirill Kar­abits as part of the Britten Pears Young Artist Pro­gramme, sup­ported by the Wor­shipful Com­pany of Mu­si­cians. Robert reg­u­larly con­ducts  and works with Pro Corda  String Or­chestra based at Leiston Abbey, re­cently con­ducting them at the Cadogan Hall, London.

Robert is a pas­sionate leader and works with mu­si­cians of all ages and abil­ities in a wide range of music. He is an in­stru­mental teacher, work­shop leader and con­ductor for Traf­ford Music Ser­vice, working with Youth Choirs and Youth In­stru­mental En­sembles. Fur­ther­more, he is reg­u­larly in­vited to coach or­ches­tras and choirs who in­clude the Slaith­waite and Hud­der­sfield Phil­har­monic Orchestras. Whilst a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Manchester and the RNCM, he was Prin­cipal Con­ductor to the Uni­ver­sity Sin­foni­etta and the Vag­anza New Music En­semble. He was se­lected to work with the highly es­teemed com­poser John Mc­Cabe, con­ducting Rain­forest I as part of the composer’s 70th Birthday cel­eb­ra­tions. Along­side his con­ducting work, Robert has just started training in the Al­ex­ander Technique. Robert has been ment­ored by Mark Heron, Peter Stark, Toby Purser, Tim Reynish and Mark Sha­nahan.

As a vi­olist he is a busy freel­ance mu­si­cian, not­ably having worked for Opera North, RLPO and Sin­fonia Cymru. With a keen in­terest in new music, Robert has col­lab­or­ated and per­formed works by Brian Fer­ney­hough and Steve Reich working with the com­posers them­selves. He was awarded the Sir John Bar­bir­olli Prize and the Ter­ence Weil Prize for Chamber Music for his work with the Med­lock String Quartet and has per­formed with the highly es­teemed Ed­in­burgh Quartet and Al­legri String Quartet. The Med­lock Quartet also per­form for the ‘Live Music Now’ scheme. Robert’ plays on a modern viola made by Colin Adamson which was gen­er­ously sup­ported by the EMI Music Sound Foundation.