Andrew Davis

Andrew Davis is an English conductor currently resident in the USA. He was a Watford Grammar School boy who studied classics and played the organ at a local theatre before going on to study music at the Royal Academy. He later studied conducting under the mentorship of the renowned Italian conductor Franco Ferrara and is one of a number of famous conductors who learned their craft under the guidance of the Italian master.

Davis took up his first significant post three years after graduating from Cambridge University in 1967 where he had been an organ scholar. He was engaged as an associate conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for two years before becoming the musical director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In the late 1980s he became the music director at Glyndebourne and then took up the role of chief conductor for the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1989. He stood down from that position in 2000, shortly after receiving his knighthood, and now holds the title of conductor laureate there. Latterly Davis has lived in Chicago and is currently the music director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago with a contract scheduled to end in 2020.