Michael Betteridge: 15 Facts on the brilliant composer/conductor
Michael grew up in a village called Garsington in South Oxfordshire. He got into music because his mother had bought an old out of tune piano as furniture and - showing a keenness for the instrument - he started lessons shortly before his fourth birthday.
When Michael was growing up Garsington Opera was actually based in the village itself (it's now at the Wormsley Estate in Buckinghamshire) and in his teenage years he was a programme seller. He sold programmes to many famous faces including Terry Wogan who was a trustee of the company. He also got to sit in on many of the dress rehearsals.
Piano was Michael's main instrument as a young person, but he also played saxophone. Michael's early musical endeavours were very solitary and he didn't sing in a choir until he was 17. The head of music at his school, and many of his music teachers, were composers, so he got the opportunity to sing and listen to contemporary music by adults in his life who provided a huge inspiration.
Michael moved to Manchester to study music at the age of 18. In one of his first ever lectures one of the professors asked, as a joke, if anyone didn't like Beethoven, and Michael put his hand up having struggled with one of the piano sonatas for his Grade 8. He became the class clown from that point onwards!
Michael had, and still has, a huge passion for musical theatre, especially the work of Stephen Sondheim. One of his earliest successes as a composer was a site-specific musical entitled Indigestion - set in a working restaurant. Audiences were invited to sit at large tables and share their food, engaging with strangers next to them. As the musical unfolds different diners reveal themselves to actually be performers, bursting into song to the unknowing audience members next to them. This work was performed in various restaurants across Manchester, at The Lowry in Salford, and then at Riverside Studios in London as part of the Tete a Tete festival.
Another one of Michael's earlier successes was a musical that took place on Manchester's tram network. There and Back Again was a story of an anniversary gone wrong in which a couple begin to fight, only to discover that one is proposing to the other at their destination tram stop in Salford. The massed choir and proposal at Media City UK tram stop felt so realistic that some members of the public thought it was a real and didn't know it was a musical!
After his undergraduate training, and a small hiatus pursuing other musical career options, Michael returned to study in Manchester, but this time at the Royal Northern College of Music under the tutelage of Adam Gorb and Gary Carpenter. Michael was made an associate of the college in 2023
Michael also works as a conductor, often conducting his own works. As well as studying conducting at the RNCM, he was one of the first recipients of Sing for Pleasure's Young Conductors Scholarship in 2013.
2015 was a breakthrough year for the composer creating three new substantial works including an orchestral work for beginners instruments, the LSO, and Nicola Benedetti; a site-specific choral work for Salisbury Market Square for their international festival; and an actor-musician opera entitled Thousand Furs based on the Cinderella story. The Financial Times gave the work 5 stars and described his music as 'inventive'.
Michael is passionate about ensuring classical music and opera reaches the widest audiences, especially those communities who have faced the most barriers. Much of his output and work is created with and for these communities. In 2016 he set up The Sunday Boys - a low voiced, open access, LGBTQ+ choir that focuses on creating new music by queer artists for queer singers. They specialise in commissioning new work by queer artists for open access choirs and Michael has written numerous works including collaborations with writers such as Andrew McMillan.
Michael is also passionate about music and opera that tells unhears stories. A lot of his work uses verbatim theatre techniques to work with stories of individuals and communities to bring them to life on stage like his 30 minute chamber opera Positive in 2016 based on interviews with a young man living with HIV.
He has spent a lot of time in Iceland - visiting nine times in total since 2016 - having created an interactive opera entitled #echochamber about online abuse against women. This work, which is in both English and Icelandic languages, was nominated for an Icelandic Music Award when it premiered in 2018. He's currently working on a new piece with the same team to premiere in 2025 subject to funding!
He has been twice nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Impact category. Once for a community opera for Cheltenham Music Festival called Across the Sky in 2020, and then for a digital opera co-created with people living with Tourettes Syndrome in 2022.
Next year, alongside Riders to the Sea and The Last Bit of the Moon, Michael's new children's opera The Vanishing Forest will tour to schools and venues across the country with English Touring Opera.
Michael currently lives in Marsden in West Yorkshire with his partner Ben, and two cats having moved there from Manchester after 18 years in the city. His music has often been described as industrial and urban, but more recently inspiration has been coming from the hills and greenery of the moors. Watch this space!
Composer Michael Betteridge has created a boldly reinvented version of Vaughan Williams ‘Riders To The Sea’ for chamber ensemble. If you would like to read 15 facts about Vaughan Williams click here.
‘Riders To The Sea’ will tour theatres across the UK in early 2025, for more information about this click here.