John Andrews – Principal Guest ConductorJohn Andrews has conducted many of the UK’s leading orchestras and ensembles, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Singers, BBC Philharmonic, The Orchestra of Scottish Opera, The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata.
He has twice won the BBC Music Magazine Award: for Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master (2021); and J.F. Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley (2023). Alongside the two BBC Music Magazine Awards, his recording of Smyth’s Der Wald won Presto Music’s ‘Rediscovery of the Year’ in 2023.
He has gained a formidable reputation for bringing neglected masterpieces back to public attention. Building on his early discoveries of the unloved corners of Italian bel canto and the English baroque, he has championed composers from Eccles, Arne and Lampe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to Arnold, Lutyens and Maconchy in the twentieth and twenty-first.
He has made over twenty recordings and appears regularly with the BBC Concert Orchestra and at the English Music Festival. John Has conducted over 40 operas for The Grange Festival, Opera Holland Park, English Touring Opera, Garsington Opera, Buxton International Festival and the Volkstheater Rostock.
He is Principal Guest Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra and Artist-in-Association with the English Symphony Orchestra.
2024 sees the release of discs featuring Grace Williams, Francis Poulenc and C.V Stanford; a return to the English Music Festival with the ESO, West Green Opera with the BBC Concert Orchestra, and to Opera Holland Park for the revival of Il segreto di Susanna, as well as recordings of music by Granville Bantock, Arthur Sullivan and Errollyn Wallen.
Born in Nairobi and brought up in Manchester, John graduated from Cambridge University with a Ph.D in music and history. He now lives in London with his wife, children, three cats, two chincillas and a corn-snake.
Rimma Sushanskaya – Principal Associate Conductor, NSOIn 2024, The National Symphony Orchestra celebrated a special year, performing and recording the complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies, released on the Quartz label in the Autumn of 2025. The close relationship between conductor and orchestra is palpable, one of great respect and synergy. Their critically acclaimed performances and recordings in recent years reflect a shared passion for music making. Sushanskaya has found an energy and vision which gives inspiration and a huge sense of eager anticipation for the future. A series of concerts will be presented at Cadogan Hall in London conducted by Sushanskaya in 2026.
The internationally acclaimed violinist Rimma Sushanskaya was the last pupil of the great David Oistrakh, with whom she studied at the Moscow Conservatoire, and under whose tutelage she won many prestigious awards. Upon leaving the Soviet Union, she rapidly established a glowing reputation in the USA and Europe. The Washington Post, described her as “one of the greatest violinists alive today,” and commented on her “extraordinary intensity and brilliant virtuosity.”
Rimma Sushanskaya subsequently embarked upon a most successful career in conducting. In recent years, she has performed as a conductor in concert halls of an ever-growing list of countries, including Germany, Russia, Israel, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Switzerland, China and the United Kingdom. She has been enjoying successful performances and re-engagements in prestigious venues including the Gewandhaus, Leipzig, the Berlin Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, Philharmonic Hall, Kharkov, and the Tonhalle in Zurich, Switzerland.
Rimma Sushanskaya has conducted a growing list of ensembles, including the Berlin Sinfonietta, Neues Sinfonia Orchestra Berlin, Leipzig Chamber Orchestra, Kharkov Philharmonic, St. Petersburg State Orchestra, State Philharmonic of Satu-Mare, Romania, and in England, the Orchestra of the Swan, in Stratford-upon-Avon.
She made her highly acclaimed London Debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at Cadogan Hall in 2017 conducting a programme which included Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Ravel’s La Valse. Her repertoire includes many diverse orchestral works, from the Classical and Romantic periods, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, “Choral”, Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2, Mozart’s Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No 4, and Orff’s Carmina Burana.
Following in the traditions of her own legendary teacher, Dr. Sushanskaya has been equally anxious to pass on her knowledge and experience to younger musicians. She was a sought-after Professor at the Birmingham Conservatoire, and for many years presented her own Virtuoso Violin Festival every summer in Stratford-upon-Avon, her base in England.