Charles Hazlewood is an acclaimed British broadcaster and conductor, who won his first prize for conducting at the European Broadcasting Union Conducting Competition in 1995, and continued his success. He has perfmored at the BBC Proms and has been a regular at Glastonbury since 2008 after forming The Charles Hazlewood All Stars (featuring Goldfrapp's Will Gregory, Portishead's Adrian Utley and saxophonist Andy Sheppard), an improvisational band based in Glastonbury, Somerset. One of his ambitions is to bring classical music to the largest possible audience, notably through the weekly radio programmes he presents for the BBC featuring in depth looks at great pieces of music, and more uncommon means such as talking to the audience while on stage, playing in unconventional settings and combining the music with other forms of art. An example of the above is his latest project, an annual classical music 'festival' called Play the Field, which takes place over two days in Hazlewood's field in Somerset, and features classical music played by his symphony orchestra, Excellent Device!, and which in it's first year (29th and 20th August, 2009) also incorporated a food market of local produce and The Charles Hazlewood All Stars playing psychedelic responses to the pieces, something never done before. He collaborated with Deborah Meadan of Dragon's Den to pull it off, who also lives in Somerset. The first night of the festival, during which Gustav Holsts's The Planets suite was performed, was recently played on BBC Radio 2 in it's entirety.
