Tim was born into a musical family in Dorset and achieved music and academic scholarships to Canford School, before reading music at Manchester University. He continued his studies in a Master of Performance with Steven Wilkie at the Royal Northern College of Music, graduating with distinction in summer 2014.
Alongside Southbank Sinfonia, Tim studied for his Orchestral Postgraduate Diploma at Birmingham Conservatoire with Zoe Beyers and Adam Romer from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Tim also performs with Khymerikal, who specialise in the performance of new music by emerging UK composers and were featured on BBC Radio 3.
Tim is an active writer and researcher, recently winning an editorial internship at The Strad Magazine. His particular focus is in the history, traditions and aesthetics of performance, growing from the interest sparked during his degree.
Which three people, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with and why?
I’d really like to meet Alma Mahler; she was a socialite in Vienna during one of the most interesting periods in its history. She was married to a succession of important artists, the composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius and novelist Franz Werfel, and was friends with loads of interesting people like Gustav Klimt and Alexander Zemlinsky, so she’d have lots of juicy gossip.
My second would be Robert Levin, he’s a scholar and pianist that I really admire; it would be amazing to meet him.
My third would be Patton Oswalt, he’s a comedian from California with a hilarious take on everyday life that really speaks to me. JS Bach, Clara Schumann, Henryk Szeryng, Nadia Boulanger, John Coltrane, John Belushi and Robert Plant deserve honourable mentions as well.
What’s on your playlist right now?
A bunch of Bach Cantatas, Darius Milhaud’s string quartets and duos, a brilliant performance of Brahms’ Double Concerto by the Capuçon brothers, Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite, a live album by Chris Potter, a choral piece by Peter Warlock called The Full Heart, some really intricate techno by a group from Berlin called Brandt Brauer Frick and a track called A Fine Line by Luke Vibert.
Tell us something about yourself that might surprise us
I used to do a lot of marathon kayaking; when I was 17 I took part in a race from Devizes in Wiltshire to Westminster over Easter weekend, which is around 125 miles. It’s an annual race so I did it again the next year too!