Michael Withers has had a passion for conducting for as long as he can remember. He conducted his first concerts while still at school and hasn’t stopped since.

Over the years he has been privileged to work with a wide range of amateur and semi-professional ensembles, and with many singers who have subsequently enjoyed careers in the profession.

As well as his work with Tempo, he is currently also the Director of Music of the Band of the Surrey Yeomanry, a community wind ensemble based in Redhill.

Over the years he has been musical director of a number of opera groups - most recently Sussex-based Heber Opera - and has conducted a wide range of operas ranging from Purcell (King Arthur and Dido and Aeneas) to Britten (Rape of Lucretia), and including rarely performed works such as Holst's The Perfect Fool and three of Ralph Vaugan Willam’s five operas Hugh the Drover, The Poisoned Kiss and The Pilgrim's Progress.

In the concert hall, he has been involved in some ground-breaking concerts, including the first modern performances of several of Sir Arthur Sullivan's serious compositions, including the oratorio The Martyr of Antioch, On Shore and Sea and incidental music to Macbeth, The Merry Wives of Windsor and others.

When he isn’t conducting choirs or opera, Michael is to be found playing a wide variety of medieval and renaissance instruments with the early music groups ‘Faronel’ and ‘The Sussex Waits’, or indulging his other great passion, the saxophone, in swing bands!