Meurig Bowen
General Adjudicator
Meurig Bowen is Director of the Cheltenham Music Festival, one of the UK’s most celebrated classical music events, and 70 festivals old this year. The son of a Welsh tenor (hence the Welsh name), he was born and brought up in London and studied music at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was a choral scholar. Also a viola player in his teens, he was a member of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra – the highlight, being conducted by Witold Lutoslawski in his own Concerto for Orchestra; and, with no apparent facility, he doggedly practised his way through to Grade 8 piano too. He continues to sing a little now, deputising as a counter tenor in the choirs at Gloucester Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey.
Following graduation, and after a period managing The Hilliard Ensemble in London, he moved to Sydney, where he was Artistic Administrator of the Australian Chamber Orchestra from 1995-2001. Returning to the UK, he was Director of the Lichfield Festival in Staffordshire until 2004, and then Head of Programming at the Aldeburgh Festival / Snape Proms before moving west to Cheltenham in 2007.
He has programmed a huge variety of music in these various roles – 800 years of music featuring orchestras, choirs, chamber ensembles, early music groups, world, folk and jazz. He has commissioned and presented the premieres of several dozen works by a wide range of composers, from Arvo Pärt, John Tavener and Judith Weir to Brett Dean, Graham Fitkin and Mark Anthony Turnage.
As a freelance writer of features and reviews, he has contributed over the years to the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Music Magazine, The Guardian, The Independent and Sydney Morning Herald, as well as writing many concert programmes and CD liner notes, notably for the Hyperion label. He has written and presented a number of radio programmes for ABC Classic FM in Australia and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3, most recently a programme on Grainger and folk music for Radio 3’s The Essay.
He is a trustee of Birmingham’s elite choir Ex Cathedra and the Holst Birthplace Museum in Cheltenham, and a regular jury member for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards.
Meurig has had the privilege of programming a number of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Young Musician finalists over the years; and at this year’s Cheltenham Music Festival, alongside performances by Guy Johnston and Benjamin Grosvenor, Nicola Benedetti is Artist in Residence.
