Charles Matthew Egerton Hazlewood (born 14 November 1966) is a British conductor. After winning the European Broadcasting Union conducting competition in 1995 whilst still in his twenties, Hazlewood has had a career as an international conductor, music director of film and theatre, composer and a curator of music on British radio and television, Motivational Speaker and founder of Paraorchestra – the world's first integrated ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians. He was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in May 2019 and became Sky Arts' Ambassador for Music in January 2021.
Education and early career
Hazlewood was born on 14 November 1966 to the Reverend Canon Ian Hazlewood and Helen Hazlewood. His brother is Will Hazlewood, an Anglo-Catholic bishop.
Hazlewood attended Christ's Hospital school in West Sussex where he was a chorister and organist. He later gained an organ scholarship to Keble College, Oxford in 1986, graduating in 1989. He made his London debut with his own chamber orchestra, Eos, in January 1991.
Conductor
Hazlewood has conducted many orchestras, including the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, and the Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Orchestra of St Luke’s, New York.
He has conducted over 100 world premieres and is a founder of the British Paraorchestra, which performed together with the band Coldplay at the 2012 Summer Paralympics. He has also initiated several projects that explore common ground between different musical disciplines, such as "Urban Classic" (2006), which drew together five grime emcees and the BBC Concert Orchestra.
In 2003 Hazlewood formed Army of Generals, a period instrument orchestra, to record with him all the music for his BBC films on Mozart, Beethoven and the Birth of British Music. Army of Generals would regularly collaborate with Paraorchestra until the ensemble was fully integrated into Paraorchestra in 2019.
In 2008 Hazlewood formed his All Star Collective ensemble to play Tubular Bells at the Glastonbury Festival, featuring artists from across genres including Adrian Utley of Portishead, Will Gregory of Goldfrapp and jazz saxophonist Andy Sheppard. It went on to play the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Sage Gateshead and St George’s Bristol in 2011, a re-enactment of Mike Oldfield's own group performance 38 years previously. In 2012, Jason Yarde and composer Graham Fitkin joined the All-Stars in a performance of Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air at the Bristol Old Vic.
In 2009 he staged his first festival “Play the Field” with Dragons' Den's Deborah Meadon with the mutual goal of bringing music to a wider audience in the West Country. The festival included a complete performance of Holst's The Planets which saw artists from his All-Star collective including Goldfrapp's Will Gregory and Adrian Utley of Portishead, saxophonists Andy Sheppard and Jason Yarde, drummer Tony Orrell, keyboardist Graham Fitkin and harpist Ruth Wall improvise electronic responses to each orchestral planet from a separate stage across the site. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in September 2009.
In 2010 Hazlewood conducted a live score for the 1926 silent film The Passion of Joan Arc, composed by Adrian Utley and Will Gregory, commissioned by Bristol Beacon and Watershed Media centre. It opened at Bristol Beacon in May 2010.
His "Orchestra in a Field" festival took place at Glastonbury Abbey in 2012 with performances of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Bizet’s Carmen, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and a collaboration with Professor Green and Labrinth.
Their “Thunderbirds are Go!” project was launched in 2014 at Glastonbury Festival, a celebration of work by composer Barry Gray. The show also featured at the 6 Music Festival in 2016 with guest vocalist Jarvis Cocker and members of Paraorchestra. Charles Hazlewood’s All Star Collective was integrated into Paraorchestra in 2019.
Paraorchestra
Hazlewood is Artistic Director of Paraorchestra, the world's first fully integrated ensemble of professional musicians with and without disabilities, which he founded together with television director Claire Whalley in November 2011. The orchestra was the subject of a documentary by Channel Four, screened in the hours between the end of the final sporting event at London 2012 Paralympics and the Closing Ceremony where they made their world debut alongside Coldplay.