Festival Manager
Nathan James Dearden is a composer of concert music and mixed media, conductor, teacher and arts advisor, whose work has been described as “hauntingly beautiful” (Media Wales), and performed and featured by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tippett Quartet, National Youth Orchestra of Wales, Grand Band, Fidelio Trio, and Hebrides Ensemble. His music regularly features in concerts across the UK and overseas, including at the Cheltenham Music Festival, Dartington International Festival, CROSSROADS International New Music Festival and Vale of Glamorgan Festival of Music.
He has recently collaborated with Making Music UK and Swansea Philharmonic Choir for a BBC Radio 3 broadcast of his 3 postcards, and is currently creating a series of choral ‘virtual memories’ with the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, in partnership with NMC Recordings, Stainer & Bell, and PRS Foundation. In May 2020, he was awarded the inaugural Acapela Studio Award for exceptional Welsh composers from the Welsh Music Guild.
Originally from South Wales, Nathan James Dearden is currently Performance Manager, Visiting Lecturer in Music, Conductor of the New Voices Consort and New Music Collective at Royal Holloway, University of London. Nathan was formerly a House Manager at the BBC-flagship venue, St. George’s Bristol, and has held posts in event administration at Cardiff University. He is also a Trustee for London-based Classical Remix, an organisation which commissions composers, performers, writers, and artists to reimagine and reinterpret historic music, plus is a Board Member for the Welsh Music Guild. As an Arts Advisor, he has worked with several music groups plus National Youth Arts Wales, MusicFest Aberystwyth and Chamber Music on Valentia.