Mr Robin Browning
Specialist Teaching Staff - Conducting
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Mr Robin Browning is Specialist Teaching Staff - Conducting in Music at the University of Southampton.
I’ve enjoyed working alongside young conductors at the University of Southampton for over ten years, and have seen tremendous change in the scope and depth of the courses I teach and the students I’m lucky enough to coach during that time. My work has expanded greatly from what was a small class of third years a decade ago. It now encompasses an initial second-year conducting unit through to provision for one-to-one study for third years (including the presentation of a final performance recital as a conductor, in – broadly speaking – any genre), and now conducting study at postgraduate level too.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have enjoyed a strong and profound technical training as a conductor. At the start of my career I sought out the world’s greatest conducting pedagogues, studying with Ilya Musin (the great teacher of Gergiev, Temirkanov and Bychkov), Joseph Gifford (an American movement specialist) and Sian Edwards (who now runs the conducting course at London’s Royal Academy of Music – herself one of Musin’s greatest students, who I’m lucky enough to regard as a close colleague). Such gifted teachers, and plenty of hard work, have given me a real understanding of the technical problems confronting today’s young conductors, and I’ve devised plenty of methods to help students overcome them.
Alongside the technique of conducting, I also spent a great deal of time assisting and learning from some of the world’s most famous maestri: luminaries such as Sir Colin Davis, Haitink, Jansons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, to name just a few. I’ve developed an obsessive attention to score-detail, harmonic analysis and tonal colour, and consider myself well-equipped to pass this knowledge on to others.
The conductors of tomorrow need many things, no matter whether they intend on working with school ensembles once they graduate or harbour ambitions to conduct at the highest level. Conducting study at the University of Southampton nurtures young talent with plenty of experience, training and background. Both the Music department and the thriving student musical scene as a whole offer plenty of gifted singers and instrumentalists with whom undergrad and postgrad conductors can work.
Many Southampton alumni are conducting in the profession now. If you’re serious about becoming a musical leader of tomorrow, come and join them!