Robert Ferguson LGSM ARCM LRAM
Conductor
Robert Ferguson's early music training was at the Guildhall School of Music. At the age of 18 he attended the Royal College of Music where he studied piano for five years with Cyril Smith. His piano playing gained him the Hopkinsol Gold Medal, presented by the Queen Mother and the Dannreuther Prize for his performance of Prokofief's 3rd Piano Concerto. His concert debut was at the Royal Festival Hall in 1973.

From 1972, Robert worked as a piano duo with the late Christopher Kite. Their London debut was at the Wigmore Hall in 1973 and they appeared many times on the South Bank to critical acclaim. They performed throughout the British Isles and recorded much of the piano duet and two-piano repertoire for the BBC after their first live broadcast in 1980. The majority of their performances were broadcast on BBC Radio 3, the most recent transmission being February 1990. Their concerts sometimes employed reproduction or antique early pianos for the works of J C Bach and Mozart. They toured Ireland twice and performed at the Belfast Festival and Bath Festival. Robert recorded the piano music for the cartoon film 'Rarg', which has been broadcast several times on British TV. He also recorded the piano music for the TV film 'The Grass Arena', first broadcast on BBC2 and subsequently in Norway, Greece, Israel and Australia. He also recorded a series of nine programmes for Radio Television Hong Kong in 1992.

Robert has had teaching commitments at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge sine 1979 and at the Anglian Polytechnic University since 1984. He has been an enthusiastic adjudicator at various competitive festivals including the Stratford and East London Festival and Exeter Festival. Robert recently formed a duo partnership with the flautist Brenda Dykes. His work as an examiner has taken him worldwide, including Ireland, Jersey, the Orkneys and Shetlands and also to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunel and Indonesia. He has been conducting the Havering Concert Orchestra for the past 15 years and this evening's concert will be his 50th.