{"id":2452543,"date":"2026-06-10T08:55:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2452543"},"modified":"2026-06-10T08:55:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:55:51","slug":"mentors-muses-and-new-music-conductor-and-composer-ryan-wigglesworth-classical-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/mentors-muses-and-new-music-conductor-and-composer-ryan-wigglesworth-classical-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Mentors, muses and new music: conductor and composer Ryan Wigglesworth | Classical music"},"content":{"rendered":"

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R<\/span>yan Wigglesworth cuts a confident figure striding through the Royal Academy of Music in London. He\u2019s been a professor here since 2019 \u2013 juggling his duties with his role as chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra<\/a>, guest conducting internationally, regular recitals as a pianist, and a busy schedule as a composer. Oh, and he\u2019s also the father of three \u201cboisterous\u201d young children, whose sleepless antics have left him bleary and clutching his coffee this morning.<\/p>\n

He sits at the head of the long table in the Academy\u2019s oak-panelled boardroom, looking perfectly at home. Was he inevitably going to end up here?<\/p>\n

Wigglesworth, 46, squirms at the suggestion. \u201cI certainly wasn\u2019t confident as a child,\u201d he\u2019s quick to correct. \u201cI was actually very timid and shy. Maybe that helped; I just used to blend in with the furniture, so no one noticed I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he stood out sufficiently at nursery school \u2013 \u201cA strange boy, belting out hymns\u201d \u2013 that a teacher took notice and he was sent to audition for Sheffield Cathedral Choir where this son of a butcher, the only boy from \u201cthe wrong side of the city\u201d, was swept up into an entirely new world.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou become a chameleon in that sort of situation; you learn pretty quickly to adapt. I was very lucky that Graham Matthews \u2013 the man in charge of music at the Cathedral \u2013 took me under his wing when he saw how fanatically interested I was,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Matthews\u2019 intervention opened big doors: Charterhouse, an organ-scholarship to Oxford, Guildhall, Cambridge. But Wigglesworth\u2019s real education was always informal, first with his father\u2019s LPs \u2013 \u201cHe subscribed to this Great Composers magazine, the kind that comes with those faux-leather folders, but also with recordings\u201d \u2013 and then via the radio and the music collection of the Sheffield Central Library \u2013 \u201cThat really was my happy place \u2013 a total treasure trove \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Knussen Chamber Orchestra players perform with Ryan Wigglesworth at the 2025 Aldeburgh festival. He describes his relationship with Oliver Knussen as \u2018the central musical relationship of my life\u2019. <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Which is how, age 12, Wigglesworth first came to Aldeburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI devoured the Humphrey Carpenter biography of Benjamin Britten, then pestered my parents until they agreed to make a trip down. It was a kind of pilgrimage.\u201d The relationship only intensified after Wigglesworth met composer (and, then, friend and mentor) Oliver Knussen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d heard his Third Symphony<\/a> on the radio. It knocked me for six \u2013 music I never dreamed existed. So I sat down and tried to figure out what he\u2019d done. I then wrote him a long letter. Six weeks later an extraordinarily generous reply arrived, full of great advice, lots of it similar to what he\u2019d received from Britten himself as a young composer.\u201d<\/p>\n

He describes theirs as \u201cthe central musical relationship of my life\u201d, his formative years spent sitting in rehearsals at the festival\u2019s Snape Maltings concert hall, where Knussen was artistic director for more than a decade, soaking it all in.<\/p>\n