A Portrait of Elgar

William Boughton is recognised as a specialist in the best of English music, but is at the same time a conductor of international significance and experience. During the past twelve years he has developed a profound interpretation of the works of twentieth-century English composers in the same Worcestershire countryside where Sir Edward Elgar found the inspiration for his greatest compositions.

With the English String Orchestra - of which he was founder, artistic director and principal conductor - Boughton brought a fresh world-wide consideration of such composers as Elgar, Finzi, Vaughan Williams, Butterworth, Britten, Parry and Tippett. Together they made a significant number of internationally acclaimed recordings with Nimbus Records, a number of which have reached the Top Ten in the US charts. His recording of the English romantic repertoire was further extended in 2009 when he became the Music Director of the new Haven Symphony Orchestra and released the highly acclaimed recording of the Walton Violin Concerto and First Symphony.

The English String Orchestra are perhaps unique among modern day Elgar interpreters. Based in Malvern they are situated in the very heart of Elgar Country. Elgar's birthplace at Broadheath is less than an hour's drive away as indeed are many places associated with the composer, including the quiet, unspoilt graveyard where Elgar and his wife, Alice, and their daughter, Carice, are buried. The landscape has become Elgarian by association and no visitor to the area can escape the feeling that here is a place somehow out of time. Anyone performing Elgar on his home ground, so to speak, cannot fail to be affected by the atmosphere generated by the place and by the man himself.