Courtney Lewis 2007-08 & 2008-09 Courtney Lewis was born in Belfast in 1984 and studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He graduated from Cambridge with starred-First class honours in music, subsequently completing a Master’s degree on the music of György Ligeti. At the RNCM he studied conducting with Mark Elder, Clark Rundell and Baldur Brönnimann. He has participated in conducting masterclasses with Peter Stark, George Hurst, Martyn Brabbins and Mark Shanahan. At Cambridge Courtney conducted all the university orchestras and the opera society, including a fully staged performance of The Rake’s Progress. He also worked regularly with his own orchestras, the Brandenburg Players and the Cambridge Beethoven Players. During the 2006/7 season, Courtney worked with the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra and acted as music director of the Burnley Municipal Symphony Orchestra and Choir where he raised artistic standards to acclaim in the local press: ‘Lewis, still in his early twenties, is a great communicator. The players delight in him, and seemed gripped by his enthusiasm and skill’. He has assisted conductor Thierry Fischer, who describes him a ‘born conductor, gifted, passionate and full of creative ideas’, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. After conducting the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra on the Orkney Conducting Course, Courtney featured in articles on young conductors in both BBC Music Magazine and The Guardian. He is extremely excited about the upcoming year as Zander Fellow with Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.