Simon Beesley, Oboe

Born in 1960 in Nuneaton, Simon started playing the oboe at the age of ten. Having attended the Birmingham School of Music during his school days, studying with David Cowshill of the BBC Midland Light Orchestra, he entered the Royal Northern College of Music to study with Richard Simpson in 1978. Whilst at the College he gave the world premier of the Oboe Concerto by Guy Woolfenden at the Edinburgh Festival.

Postgraduate orchestral studies prepared Simon for life as a performing musician, and he enjoyed several years of playing and traveling with leading orchestras and opera and ballet companies, including the Halle Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, Northern Ballet and Opera North, with whom he toured Berlin and Leipzig as part of the tricentenary celebrations of Handel’s birth.

Other avenues beckoned, however, and following a period of retraining, Simon subsequently decided to develop a career in the IT industry. As such, he has held the positions of Director of Networks and Communications and European IT Director with two American software companies. Outside of music and IT, Simon holds strong interests in photography, travel and walking, and in 2006 he was a member of a team undertaking the Three Peaks Challenge, raising funds for the Born Free charity.

Simon is co-principal oboe with both the Stockport Symphony Orchestra and the Cheshire Sinfonia and frequently undertakes concerts with the Dulcian Wind Quintet and the Hope Trio, as well as ad hoc chamber music making with friends. During his time in the Stockport Symphony Orchestra and Cheshire Sinfonia, he has had the opportunity to perform several concerti, among them works by Mozart, Albinoni, Strauss and Vaughan-Williams.