Keith Slade

Keith began his musical journey learning clarinet from the age of ten. He later graduated from the RNCM and was awarded the Hilda Collins prize. He continued to study clarinet with Angela Malsbury and Nicholas Rodwell on a two year post graduate performance course at the Royal Academy of Music, kindly supported by the Countess of Munster Trust. Keith was awarded the Dorothy Grinsted Memorial prize for the most outstanding postgraduate, the John Soloman Wind and Brass prize and the Morgensterns award. Other prizes include BBC Young Musician Woodwind Finalist, Sussex prize Royal Overseas League and overall winner Blackpool International Music Festival.

Keith has extensive experience as an orchestral musician and has worked with orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the BBC Philharmonic. He regular tours with internationally renowned chamber opera company London Festival Opera which has taken him as far afield as Zimbabwe (HIFA Festival), Barbados (Holders Festival) and, most recently, La Fenice Opera House, Venice. West End shows include Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins. In 2009 Keith was appointed clarinetist of the chamber ensemble ‘Mid Wales Chamber Soloists’, working with esteemed musicians such as Marcia Crayford and Moray Welsh. In this time he has performed works by Mozart, Weber, Brahms, Ravel and Beethoven.

Keith has performed a number of concertos by composers such as Mozart, Finzi, Weber and Copland. Recital venues include St. James, Piccadilly, St. Martin In The Fields, London, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and Fairfield Concert Hall, Croydon.

Keith took an interest in conducting at the RNCM when Tim Reynish approached him after his advanced conducting exam, and invited him to join the Fellows at the college. He jumped at the chance and for a year and a half he benefited greatly from this tuition. Keith was Head of Wind and Brass at the Birmingham Conservatoire Junior School, conducting the Symphony Orchestra and Wind orchestra. In January 2010 he was appointed Music Director of the Worcester Symphony Orchestra. Keith’s most recent conducting engagements include Worcester Symphony Orchestra, National schools symphony orchestra and Lancashire schools Symphony orchestra. In March 2012 Keith was selected to participate on the Colin Metters International conducting course.

You can hear Keith performing Mozart’ Clarinet Concerto on the “Hear Us page“