Sandy Burnett is one of the UK’s most authoritative broadcasters in the field of classical music. His broadcasts, interviews, and lectures are all underpinned by the hands-on experience of being a practising musician.
Since 2017, Sandy has been an accredited Arts Society lecturer, his talks aimed at unlocking the worlds of classical music and jazz to general arts-loving audiences; his busy diary of speaking engagements takes him right across the world. After spending a season as the Academy of Ancient Music's Hogwood Fellow, in the spring of 2020 he set up an online Listening Club to explore great works of classical music; conceived as a lockdown project, it has built up an enthusiastic and loyal following. He leads cultural tours to music festivals everywhere from New Orleans to Leipzig, and Bath to Budapest. Having learned his trade from Martin Randall Travel, whose clients gave him a 100% approval rating, he currently works in close partnership with ACE Cultural Tours.
“ ‘absolutely outstanding’, ‘a very serious and learned lecturer’, ‘absolutely the best lecturer of the many fine lecturers I’ve experienced on my many MRT experiences’, ‘an excellent speaker with wide ranging knowledge’”
For Princeton University Press he has written themes for Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow and Jane Austen’s The Beautiful Cassandra, and his music is featured on audio editions of TES and the New Scientist; he is a Pretty Decent Music composing and recording artist.
After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy Burnett spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3; his broadcasting work was admired and appreciated by many classical music lovers, with the exception of the late Sir Gerald Kaufman. His many credits include the flagship breakfast programme Morning on 3, live Proms, concerts from the Edinburgh International Festival, countless studio broadcasts and interviews with classical music’s top artists.
“Amen to your pragmatism. Whatever one’s scholarly bent or aesthetics, your approach brings people into the fold, and that blows all dogma out of the window. Bravo!”
He has broadcast and recorded for RTÉ’s Lyric FM and Radio 1, Wigmore Hall, Linn Records, Intermusica, and the City of London Festival, while live onstage he has lectured and hosted events for many leading music organisations including Wigmore Hall, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the London Jazz Festival.
“conducting and organising this event was the redoubtable Sandy Burnett, a modern day Andre Previn”
As conductor he masterminded a complete performing cycle of Bach's sacred cantatas, a mammoth enterprise spread over thirteen years; this has led to workshops with St Andrews Voices and an innovative Bach Cantata Discovery Day for the Valletta Baroque Festival. In October 2023 he devised and conducted a William Byrd choral Discovery weekend with the Monteverdi Project in Valletta, supported by the British Council.
As double bassist he performs chamber music at the annual Burton Bradstock Festival, and plays in the Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra, the Peter Rudeforth Sextet, Blue Harlem, and the Friday night house band at the Chelsea Arts Club in West London. With pianist and composer David Gordon he set up Tenor Madness to explore the creative possibilities of improvising on Renaissance and Baroque themes.