A musician with a wide-ranging international career, British conductor and organist Michael Bawtree regularly conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and has directed the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Red Note Ensemble, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Orchestra North East and many performances for Scottish Ballet across the British Isles. For seven years he was Assistant Music Director of the Lyrique-en-Mer summer opera festival in Brittany, returning there last summer to lead performances of Menotti’s The Telephone. He joined the music staff at Glyndebourne for their 2018 production of Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande, and has worked as guest chorus master for the BBC Singers, Danish National Opera and St Endellion Festival.

Since 2005, Michael Bawtree has been Chorus Director of the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union and Music Director of Glasgow Chamber Choir. For eight seasons, he was Artistic Director of Edinburgh University Chamber Choir. He conducted a specially-formed ensemble at His Majesty King Charles III’s “Scottish Coronation” in Edinburgh in July 2023. A keen advocate of contemporary music, Bawtree has conducted world premieres of works by Judith Bingham, Paul Mealor, Cecilia McDowall, Richard Peat and Rory Boyle.

An avid traveller, Bawtree has been lucky to visit all corners of the globe whilst making music: he spent the summer of 2014 living in Mumbai, directing a choral project with 250 children from all walks of life; in October 2023, he was on an island in northwest Greenland leading a week of workshops and performances with young musicians from across Scandinavia; last February, he returned to Mumbai to perform Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony with the Symphony Orchestra of India; and last September, he returned to Australia for a third time to lead a youth choir project in Brisbane.

As organist and continuo player, he performs regularly with all the Scottish orchestras and has played with the London Symphony, Swedish Radio, Bergen Philharmonic and BBC Symphony orchestras. Organ recital invitations have taken Bawtree to all the major British cathedrals, Notre-Dame de Paris, Washington National Cathedral, Auckland Town Hall and to Bermuda, New England, California, the Faroe Islands and across Scandinavia. Bawtree studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge University, and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he is now Lecturer in Conducting.