Guy Noble

Guy Noble will be conducting 40 members of Sydney Youth Orchestra tomorrow when they perform at The 2010 Australia Day Lunch.


"As a pianist, I wasn't ever a regular member of the orchestra, but was called in for special pieces that required some keyboard. One of those was with Stuart Challender who was conducting Shostakovich 5. I can't remember the year in the 80's this happened, but it was certainly prior to Stuart becoming Chief Conductor of the SSO - and he was I think using the SYO as a practice for that job. He was primarily an opera conductor up to that point and had to get a grip on the orchestral concert repertoire.

Anyway, the piano was placed at the back of the first violins, and I remember looking up to see Stuart glaring at me in the middle of a passage with such a ferocity I thought I must have missed a cue. I hadn't - it was his style to look over the section into the middle distance when he was conducting something passionate, and I just happened to be in his sightline. It was a terrific and fast and furious performance!"

Guy Noble knew he wanted to be a musician from the age of 8. As a boy, he sang as a soloist with the Sydney Symphony and with the Australian Opera. He studied the piano in Sydney and toured to the BBC Proms in London, playing in Stravinsky's Petrouchka.

He has talked about music (as host of ABC Classic FM's Breakfast Show), recorded it (8 CDs for ABC Classics), and conducted it all over the country and abroad (Sydney Symphony, West Australian Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Queensland Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony, Auckland Philharmonic and Malaysian Philharmonic).

Noble has been able to work with such wonderful performers as Harry Connick Jr, Dianne Reeves, Ben Folds, Clive James, and in great musical theatre shows such as The Phantom of the Opera, South Pacific, Sunset Boulevard and Titanic.