"Masterly" (The Independent)

"Purser... raised the performance to the level of the truly ethereal....an incredible performance." (Music OMH)

Toby Purser, Artistic Director and Founder of the Orion Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the London International Orchestra and the Kammerphilhamonie Graz, is widely regarded as an intelligent and passionate conductor.

His musical studies began as a chorister and a music scholar at Winchester College. He studied piano for a year in Vienna before returning to read music at Oxford, where he founded the Oxford Philomusica and conducted the Oxford Sinfonietta. He spent two years at the St. Petersburg State Conservatoire studying conducting with Ilya Musin, and then a further three years at the Royal Academy of Music with Colin Metters.

Toby Purser first came to prominence when he won second prize at the Leeds Conducting Competition in 2002, and was appointed Assistant Conductor of L'Ensemble Orchestral de Paris for 2007 following his participation in the Vendome Academy with Janos Furst and John Nelson.

The orchestras he has conducted include the English Chamber Orchestra, L’Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Sinfonia Viva Orchestra of Opera North, St. Petersburg Festival Orchestra, Orpheus Sinfonia, Cheltenham Chamber Orchestra, Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra, Oxford University Orchestra and Kotorart Chamber Orchestra. He has also worked with the BBC Philharmonic, Basel Symphony Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Camerata.

In 2005 Toby Purser founded the Orion Orchestra, a stepping-stone orchestra for the most talented musicians leaving music college, and has developed it into one of London's great orchestral successes, receiving glowing reviews and recognised as a leading organisation for young professional musicians. (click here to see reviews) Together, they have worked with soloists including Dame Ann Murray, Susan Gritton, Nicola Benedetti, Guy Johnston, Valeriy Sokolov, Martin Grubinger and Teo Gheorghiu. Toby Purser initiated a composers' prize, a young conductors' award and a Great Young Soloists series. His debut CD with the orchestra was released in 2010, with critical acclaim praising his “passionate but finely nuanced” conducting. A second recording of British works will be released later this year.

He is a regular guest at Grange Park Opera where he has conducted Rigoletto and Madama Butterfly and will return to conduct Eugene Onegin in 2012. His conducting of Rigoletto received outstanding acclaim from the critics. 'Most impressive of all was the vivid conducting of another rising young talent, Toby Purser' wrote David Mellor in the Mail on Sunday while George Hall in Opera Magazine said his “keen understanding of Verdi’s score is demonstrated in every single bar”.(click here to see reviews)

Other operatic performances include Hänsel und Gretel , Il Seraglio (British Youth Opera), Bailey The Black Monk (Sirius Ensemble), Sciarrino Infinito Nero (Almeida Opera), Britten Curlew River, and Puccini Gianni Schicchi, as well as many opera gala programmes. Working for Pimlico Opera, he has conducted performances of West Side Story and Carmen the Musical with the inmates of Wandsworth Prison and Sugar with the inmates of HMP Send.

His choral work includes performances of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem at Westminster Abbey. He is in great demand as a vocal coach and has worked as répétiteur with Broomhill Opera, Longborough Opera, and Almeida Opera.

In 2010 the Aberystwyth International MusicFest invited him to direct its first conductors' class, following which the class is now established as an annual event. He has been co-director of the Graz Conductors' Summer School 2008-9, and is teaching assistant to George Hurst at the Canford Summer School of Music.