John Evans

(Photo: Gideon Hart)

Dr. Evans began his professional career in 1978 as Administrator of the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies at Snape Maltings, and for five years (from 1980 to 1984) he was Research Scholar at the Britten-Pears Library & Archive at Aldeburgh. He joined the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1985 as a music producer for BBC Radio 3 (the UK’s nation-wide cultural station) becoming Senior Producer for opera the following year, Chief Producer of the BBC Singers in 1989, Editor of the daytime schedule in 1991 and Head of Radio 3 Music in 1993. In 1998 he assumed executive and artistic responsibility for the BBC’s Orchestras and Choirs and in 2000 he became Head of Music Policy and Production for the station.

During his eight years as a producer for Radio 3, Evans specialized largely in the production of live music, but also made two highly acclaimed documentaries, on the life and work of the tenor Sir Peter Pears and the legacy of the Russian conductor and commissioner of new music, Serge Koussevitsky. As an Executive Producer he was responsible over two decades for many of the Network’s landmark projects, including A Britten Evening, A Bernstein Day (live from New York), Live from Tanglewood (a weekend of broadcasting, live from the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Danube Week, Barcelona Nights, Dutch Week, A Festival of Britten, and Listen Up! — a month-long broadcast Festival celebrating the diverse activities of UK Orchestras. In May 2005, in his last year at the BBC, he directed Radio 3’s UK-wide Leonard Bernstein Season. Dr. Evans’s awards have included the coveted Sony Gold Award for ‘Broadcasting Event of the Year’ in 1996 for Live from Tanglewood, and a Prix Italia and Royal Philharmonic Society Award as Music Producer for the BBC film version of Bela Bartok’s opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle.

Dr. Evans is Vice-President of the Welsh Music Guild and a Director of The Britten Estate Ltd, He has served on the Juries of the Lisbon and Kondrashin International Conducting Competitions, the Laurence Olivier Awards, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters Awards, the BBC Singer of the World and Tosti Singing Competitions and has chaired the juries for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, BBC Choir of the Year competition, the Prix Italia and the Vienna Television Awards. He joined the Oregon Bach Festival in the summer of 2007.