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.

Colin was then engaged on two year-long U.S. National Tours, conducting The Will Rodger’s Follies and The Who’s Tommy, after which he supervised Tommy for a year in Germany, eventually opening the show back in London’s West End. Returning to classical music, Colin remained in London, conducting many productions with the English National Ballet, and guest-conducting at The Royal Ballet and English National Opera. He returned to the U.S. after opening Disney’s The Lion King in London as Music Director. He subsequently supervised the music for The Lion King on Broadway and twelve other productions worldwide, followed by four years as Music Director of Wicked in Chicago, and thirteen productions worldwide as Music Supervisor of Billy Elliot. Most recently, he spent three years as Music Director of Hamilton in Chicago. Colin has also enjoyed the distinction of performing solo at the White House, conducting at the Kennedy Center and at Ravinia Festival, arranging music for the New York and Boston Pops, and conducting on over forty jazz, pop, and big band albums. After a twenty-eight-year hiatus from playing his original principal instrument, Colin has rediscovered his love for the organ and now once again seems addicted! He now lives in Door County, where he serves as the organist at Ephraim Moravian Church and collaborates with many other musical organizations in addition to pursuing an ambitious personal gardening project in North Ephraim. In 2021 he was Music Director for Earnest in Love, Sevastopol High School’s student musical production (made for the big screen due to the pandemic restrictions on live performances) and in 2023 he introduced the 3rd-graders of Gibraltar School to the organ, and in 2024 gave an organ masterclass to all the piano students of the Birch Creek Performance Center. Colin also gave four solo organ recitals on noteworthy instruments in Green Bay, Neenah and Appleton.