Dirk Boiy - Conductor
As principal oboe player in different Belgian orchestras (Opera House of Ghent, Royal Opera House of Antwerp, Antwerp Philharmonic Orchestra, National Opera House "La Monnaie" in Brussels) Dirk's career has offered many opportunities to work with and learn from eminent conductors.
In 1986 he became conductor of the Kempens Symphonic Orchestra, the formation with which he organised the first staging of Howard Blake's "The Snowman" in Belgium in 1991.
In 1987, Sir Simon Rattle invited him to Birmingham as an orchestral conductor. Following that experience, from 1988-2002 he assumed the role of assistant conductor to Sir Simon for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.
From 2001-2006 Dirk took on the role of conductor and artistic director of the European Festival Orchestra. During the same period he co-founded and acted as artistic director of the Fairy Tales Concerts Association, an association aiming to help young people find their way to classical music. Under the auspices of the Belgian National Opera Dirk developed a series of children's concerts and CD recordings based on musical fairy-tales.
From 2013 -2016 he was a guest conductor at the Festival of the Aegean where he conducted family concerts with the Pan-European Philharmonia from Warsaw (Stravinsky: Histoire du Soldat; Britten: Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra; Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf; Kleinsinger: Tubby The Tuba).
Since 2016 Dirk has been conductor and co-director of the European FairyTale Orchestra, an ensemble of international first class musicians committed to performing musical fairy-tales from different European countries and bring to young people an awareness and appreciation of their common cultural background.
Ian Forrester - Narrator
Ian Forrester's musical abilities
have long been recognised as
modest, but he is accustomed to
speaking in public, attired in the
exotic horsehair, silk and lace garb
of a Scottish lawyer and more
recently in the sober gown of
judges of the European Courts in
Luxembourg. Ian is also a trustee
of the European Union Baroque
Orchestra (a cultural ambassador
of the European Union).
This will be his eighth year as
Snowman narrator.
Mary Gow - Organiser & Pianist
Mary comes from Wellington, New
Zealand. She holds the degrees of BA
and B Mus from Victoria University,
Wellington together with the LRSM
and FTCL diplomas in piano. She
studied for five years at the Royal
Conservatorium of Brussels.
Former productions of The Snowman
have been teamed with a commissioned
work 'The Baboons who live
by the River', by Alexander McCall
Smith and Tom Cunningham; Carnival
of the Animals; Peter and the Wolf;
Tubby the Tuba; and versions of
Britten's Young Persons' Introduction
to the Orchestra. In addition to
The Snowman, Mary's other
Christmas passion is The Brussels Carol concert which will be held this
year on Sunday 12 December.
Russian pianist Nikolai Saratovsky is her newest project, organising concerts and representing him in New Zealand and Belgium.
