Colin Welford is the Executive Director of Colin & Friends Concerts, and is the series’ principal performing artist, often joined by accomplished guest musicians. His interest in music was encouraged at a young age, and he was fortunate to receive regular piano, violin, viola and percussion lessons as a child. At the age of eleven he began pipe organ lessons, and three years later won a place at Chetham’s School of Music, the largest specialist musical high school in Europe, later winning a coveted Organ Scholarship to Oxford University. At this time, as Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, he made his first visit to the U.S. and Canada, including performances in Vancouver at the EXPO 86 World’s Fair. Although he aspired to one day hold an organist position at Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral, after becoming a student at Oxford, Colin discovered an exciting new musical avenue: orchestral conducting – becoming President of the Oxford University Opera. He went on to graduate study at the Royal College of Music in London, and with conductors Bernard Haitink and Leonard Bernstein, before coming to the U.S. to attend the University of Miami for further study in orchestral conducting. He was invited by former Philadelphia Orchestra principal oboist John DeLancie to become the first Orchestra Director at the New World School of the Arts. He subsequently conducted and taught at Florida State University and the University of Florida for three years while pursuing a conducting career in opera, symphony and musical theatre.