Meurig Bowen is a British arts administrator who works mainly in festival and orchestral programming. Since 2020 he has been Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the

Britten Sinfonia Britten Sinfonia is a chamber orchestra ensemble based in Cambridge, UK. It was created in 1992, following an initiative from Eastern Arts and a number of key figures including Nicholas Cleobury, who recognised the need for an orchestra in the ...

. He is the younger son of Welsh tenor Kenneth Bowen (1932–2018) and brother of Hereford Cathedral Director of Music Geraint Bowen. Bowen was educated at

William Ellis School William Ellis School is a voluntary aided secondary school and sixth form for boys located in Gospel Oak, London, England. Admissions The School is located near Hampstead Heath in north London. It is situated just east of Parliament Hill an ...

, London, and

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, where he was a choral scholar (1985–88). After graduating he spent six years at a London artist management company, where he was administrator of the Hilliard Ensemble. He then spent six years as artistic administrator of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in Sydney. He returned to the UK as director of the Lichfield Festival from 2002, and subsequently head of programming at the

Aldeburgh Festival The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk and is centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festi ...

, before in 2007 becoming Artistic Director of the

Cheltenham Music Festival The Cheltenham Music Festival is a British music festival, held annually in Cheltenham in the summer months (June, July) since 1945. The festival is renowned for premieres of contemporary music, hosting over 250 music premieres as of July 2004. ...

, succeeding

Martyn Brabbins Martyn Charles Brabbins (born 13 August 1959) is a British conductor. Biography The fourth of five children in his family, he learned to play the euphonium, and then the trombone during his youth at Towcester Studio Brass Band. He later studi ...

; he remained there until 2017. In December 2017 he became Head of Artistic Planning at the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales. In 2017, Quarto Books/Wide Eyed Editions published ''The School of Music'', a children's book they commissioned him to co-wrote with his wife Rachel, illustrated by Daniel Frost. The English language edition was followed in 2018 by translations in Brazil, Bulgaria, China, France, Korea and Russia. In 2020, Quarto pulped all available copies globally, due to the book's associated website being hacked by extortionists. In August 2020, Bowen was appointed as Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Britten Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra based in Cambridge, where he remains as of 2023. At times, Bowen has been active as a music journalist and commentator, writing for the national press and for CD liner notes, notably on the Hyperion label. Bowen’s two-hander for actor and pianist, ''

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undi ...

: Memoirs of a Pear-Shaped Life'', was premiered at the 2015 Cheltenham Music Festival, and has since been performed at the Presteigne and Canterbury Festivals, St George's Bristol, in Oxford and New York.

Notes

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20100207165520/http://cheltenhamfestivals.com/blog/tag/meurig-bowen/ 2010 Cheltenham Music Festival - Music 2010 - sneak preview * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowen, Meurig 1965 births Living people Artistic directors (music) Alumni of King's College, Cambridge People educated at William Ellis School