Nicholas Daniel

Cambridge oboist Nicholas Daniel is about to be given Her Majesty’s Medal for Music and spoke to Holly Willis about playing, teaching and commissioning work for unsung hero of the orchestra – the oboe

Nicholas Daniel is having a rather good year. He is the latest recipient of The Queen’s Medal for Music, awarded each year to an outstanding musician who’s had a major influence on the musical life of the nation. He has also just celebrated his 50th birthday in style, conducting at a festival in St Barts.

The Internationally acclaimed oboist and conductor has been influencing the nation’s musical tastes since winning Young Musician Of The Year as a teenager. A staggering eighteen million people tuned in to watch him win the competition in 1980 and sales of oboes went through the roof after the final as children begged their parents for lessons.

‘It is still a relatively rare instrument to be played,’ says Daniel, ‘For The Queen’s Medal to go to an oboist is just wonderful. I hope it will encourage people who are learning to keep at it. It was a fantastic piece of luck that they thought to consider me.

The oboe is the perfect instrument for Nicholas. It is about the same register as the human voice so it felt familiar to him, as an ex-chorister who even today feels the loss of his treble voice.

‘When your voice breaks and you can’t make that sound anymore it is a very odd experience and I still have dreams in which I can sing like that, he says. ‘It was around the time my voice broke that I started to practice the oboe a lot, even skipping lessons to practice, forgetting the time.’

All the hours of practice paid off when Nicholas won Young Musician of the Year, launching his career. He now has two teenage, musical sons of his own, but is cautious about the pitfalls awaiting musicians who come to prominence at an early age.

‘Pupils are like orchids,’ he says. ‘If you don’t tend to your orchids they are not going to grow in the right way, if you hothouse them they don’t develop longevity.’

Nicholas gives masterclasses all over the world, has taught at The Guildhall, Royal College of Music and flies regularly to Zurich to tutor gifted pupils there.

‘Teaching feels like something important for me to do,’ he says. ‘After a concert you feel over the moon but teaching people who need help is a great way to go back to basics. It helps me be a better oboe player myself – it’s part of what makes me a musician.’

His gift for bringing out the best in other musicians extends to conducting and commissioning. The list of composers that have written pieces for him or whose work he has premiered reads like an A –Z of modern British composition and includes Tavener, Birtwistle and Tippett.

‘The oboe has a limited repertoire so conducting is a way for me to enjoy music that I couldn’t be part of as an oboist,’ he says.

‘That frustration with my repertoire has led me to commission and perform a lot of new pieces which, in terms of my playing, is by far the most important thing I do. I get such a buzz from it.’

Nicholas is patron of several musical charities including Awards for Young Musicians (AYM) which gives assistance to children whose families could not otherwise afford to pay for music lessons. He campaigns with charity Sound And Fair for the fair trade of the distinctive African Blackwood that almost all oboes are made of.

Closer to home he previously worked with the Arts Council for the East of England as well as the Cambridge Music Service and took part in a Grade One-athon to raise money for East Anglian Air Ambulances. He is currently involved in plans to create an academy for young musicians and composers in Cambridge and auditions are expected to start in the Spring.

Cambridgeshire is close to Nicholas’s heart. He lives near St Neots and it was fellow musician Evelyn Glennie, who lives near Huntingdon, who first recommended the area as a good place to live.

‘I like the big skies of East Anglia and the fresh air,’ says Nicholas. ‘You can get to the coast quickly but also to plenty of cities. I am associated with the Britten Sinfonia, based in Cambridge, so it’s convenient being near them as well.’

With such a breadth of work and musical interests it no surprise to hear that Nicholas was the unanimous choice of the committee that helps decide who will receive The Queen’s Medal for Music. Not bad for someone who opted for music lessons over horse riding when given the choice by his mother, because he thought music sounded less like hard work!

Nicholas Daniel will be announced as winner of The Queen’s Medal for Music by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies at a concert with the Haffner Wind Ensemble at Kings College Cambridge, 29 January, 8.30pm. The programme includes Mozart’s Serenade no. 10 for wind and Britten’s Metamorphoses after Ovid. Tickets £16, £10, students under 25 free on the door. Tickets available at The Shop at King’s, King’s Parade, 01223 769 340

Local young musicians interested in finding out about the forthcoming music academy in Cambridge can contact the Britten Sinfonia for details, brittensinfonia.com