Norman Beedie
Norman Beedie studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama before gaining a Sir James Caird Scholarship enabling him to continue studies with Guido Agosti and Carlo Zecchi. As well as studying with Nadia Boulanger, he was greatly influenced by the soprano, Irène Joachim, granddaughter of violinist Joseph Joachim, friend and colleague of Brahms, and by the late, James Gibb in London. He has pursued an international career of great variety as a conductor, pianist and teacher.
Norman has performed in the major concert halls of the United Kingdom, in Europe, the Ukraine and in the Far East as the pianist in concerto, and chamber music and as an accompanist as well as conductor. A winner of the BBC Scottish Young Musician Competition, he has recorded for the BBC as a soloist and in concerto. His piano repertoire centres on the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms but also includes Thea Musgrave and Kenneth Leighton.
As a conductor, his repertoire stretches from Schutz to Rutter and includes all the Beethoven Symphonies as well as the major orchestral and choral works and rarities such as Groffé Grand Canyon Suite and the Second Symphony of Lyatoshinsky. He conducted the first Ukrainian performance of Rubbra’s Violin Concerto with the National Orchestra of Ukraine in Kyiv and is equally at home in the opera house – Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and PurcellDido and Aeneas – as in the concert hall. He has a particular affinity with choirs and was for three years the Musical Director of Dundee Choral Union performing regularly with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera as well as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Scottish Ensemble where he conducted the great choral masterpieces such as Brahms’ Requiem, Verdi Requiem, Mendelssohn Elijah and Handel Messiah.
For ten years he was Principal Conductor of the City of Peterborough Symphony Orchestra and was founder Conductor of Classic East Symphony Orchestra and of Ramsey Choral Society, Cambridgeshire. With his wife, soprano Diana Stuart, he founded the training company Opera Experience. He has conducted notable performances of Messaien Poèmes pour Mi and Strauss Vier letze gesänge with his wife as soloist.
He has been a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama training and advising musicians from all over the world and was Assistant Director at the International Conservatoire, Fontainebleau, France. He is one of the last students of the legendary Nadia Boulanger and has given masterclasses in the UK, France, the Far East and the USA and has served on competition juries in the United Kingdom and in France. He has a profound belief in the power of Improvisation and is now leading an innovative course in Classical Improvisation at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and as Director of Music at Dundee Congregational Church, improvises before and after all services. He has been a Lecturer in Piano and Improvisation at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for some fifteen years.
Norman has led summer master courses in Switzerland recently performed in Amsterdam at the International Keyboard Festival.