Anthony Halstead

Anthony Halstead launched his professional life performing on horn, securing first-chair positions across several leading English orchestras. A parallel path opened in the realm of period instruments once he mastered an extraordinary command of Baroque and Classical hand horns. Conducting entered his activities during the mid-1970s, leading to sustained leadership roles with the Hanover Band, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra. Frequently directing ensembles from the keyboard in both live appearances and studio work, he has guided numerous highly regarded programs across many countries while producing over fifty recordings issued on CPO, Musica Sveciae, Naxos, EMI, and Nimbus.

Born in Manchester, England, on 18 June 1945, Halstead received his musical training at Chetham’s School and subsequently at the Royal Manchester School of Music. Piano served as his first instrument, yet he simultaneously pursued studies in horn, organ, and composition. Concentration eventually shifted toward horn, though he maintained keyboard work and later received harpsichord instruction from George Malcolm while taking conducting lessons with Charles Mackerras.

In 1966 Halstead joined the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as principal horn, after which he advanced to comparable first-chair positions, among them one with the London Symphony Orchestra. Following additional horn study in the early 1970s with Horace Fitzpatrick, his engagement with hand horns deepened, resulting in principal appointments with several historically informed groups that included the English Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Hanover Band, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Halstead’s conducting debut occurred in 1976 when he led the first performance of Elisabeth Lutyens’ One and the Same. He thereafter directed a range of major period-instrument ensembles on a regular basis, most notably the Hanover Band. Throughout the final decades of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first, he sustained his activity as a horn player while establishing himself among England’s foremost conductors specializing in historically informed repertoire.

An especially large-scale undertaking began in 1995 when Halstead and the Hanover Band commenced recording the complete orchestral output of J.C. Bach. The project encompassed the harpsichord and fortepiano concertos, with Halstead directing from the keyboard; the resulting twenty-two-disc collection appeared on CPO, the final volume released in 2006.