John Bridcut

John Bridcut has made some sixty documentaries over the past thirty years or so, many of them on classical music. His most recent film is Michael Tippett, The Shadow and The Light, which followed composer-portraits of Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Parry, Delius and Britten (twice).

His subjects have also included a number of great artists: Dame Janet Baker, Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis, Rudolf Nureyev, Jonas Kaufmann, Herbert von Karajan and Mstislav Rostropovich.

John believes he is the only documentary-maker who has worked with all five BBC orchestras, though unfortunately not yet with the BBC Singers. He also believes nobody else has filmed Schubert’s Winterreise at the top of a mountain pass in Switzerland with 80cm of snow, which he did with Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu. He has also written two books: Britten’s Children and Essential Britten.

John’s love of English song goes back to his university days, when he organised two Festivals of English Song in Oxford.