Dominic Hartley

I grew up in Birmingham, the UK's “second city,” in the 1970s, where the leading cultural attraction was the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. I was lucky enough to be present at what turned out to be the last CBSO concert given by the underrated Louis Frémaux, and then the very first that featured Simon Rattle. Being an audience member for a lot of those early Rattle concerts shaped my understanding of what classical performance could be. Rattle famously took some time away from music in the early 1980s to study Yeats and Eliot at Oxford. I was there too. Inexplicably, our paths never crossed!

Alongside a professional career working in data privacy, I'm a keen amateur musician. Despite being fortunate to have been taught by some wonderful piano teachers, I regret to say I am still a somewhat average pianist. Singing has been more successful, and I’m lucky to be a tenor because as we know, choirs always need tenors. One of the great privileges I've had is working with some fantastic conductors in big choral pieces at the BBC Proms and elsewhere.

I've been a passionate collector of classical records and CDs since my teens. I’m especially drawn to the last century and a quarter. From Charles Ives to Kevin Puts, Ralph Vaughan Williams to Thomas Adès, I’m mesmerized by the compositional variety and scope of this most exciting of periods. I hope I can convey to Fanfare readers the sheer excitement I still feel playing a new release for the first time.