Although I generally prefer to perform with my own ensemble, there are occasions when I work with other ensembles as a player, or with larger groups - orchestras, chamber orchestras - as conductor.

My conducting debut (apart from directing student ensembles when I was teaching) was at the Royal Festival Hall in 2004 when I conducted a concert with the London Sinfonietta at the end of a tour they had done with the Estonian conductor Olari Elts and which featured the work I had written for Runi Brattaberg From Egil's Saga. Olari was not available for the last concert, which had been added after the original schedule had been drawn up and so I took over.

The programme was:

Arvo Pärt: If Bach had been a Beekeeper

Gavin Bryars: The Sinking of the Titanic
Gavin Bryars: Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Gavin Bryars: In Nomine (After Purcell)
Erkki-Sven Tüür: Passion, Illusion
Gavin Bryars: From Egil’s Saga (soloist Rúni Brattaberg)

After that I conducted Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet several times - with the Orchestre de Picardie (Opéra de Lille), Opéra de Rouen, Ictus, Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra (three times in the same evening!). I also conducted Trondúr I Gøtu in the Faroe Islands with the chamber orchestra Aldúbaran, and soloists Eivør Palsdottir and Rúni Brattaberg.

I will conduct this last piece as well as From Egil's Saga in the Faroe Islands in October 2010 for both live performance and recording.