Biography

Inside Music speaker Humphrey Burton studied music and history at Cambridge before joining BBC Radio as a studio manager. He soon transferred to BBC TV's Monitor series where he worked on documentaries featuring Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten. He became BBC’s first head of music and arts and also worked for commercial television, where he hosted and edited nearly 200 editions of the arts magazine Aquarius. Following his career with the BBC, he concentrated on the direction of operas and concerts on television, including an Emmy-winning double-feature on George Gershwin with Michael Tilson Thomas. Mr. Burton has worked as an impresario at London's Barbican Centre, Tanglewood, and the Hollywood Bowl. As a biographer, he has produced major studies of Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin, and William Walton. In 2000 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to music and television.

(September 2017)