John Evans

John Evans is president and executive director of the Oregon Bach Festival. He is a graduate of the University of Wales, where he completed his doctoral studies on Benjamin Britten in 1984. He has lectured extensively throughout the UK and North America, and has written and contributed to numerous publications about Britten. Evans joined the BBC in 1985 and in 1998 he took on executive and artistic responsibility for the BBC’s orchestras and symphony choruses, and for the BBC Singers. Two years later he was appointed as head of music programming. As executive producer he was responsible for many of the network’s landmark projects. Evans was awarded the Sony Gold Award for Radio Broadcasting Event of the Year in 1996 for "Live from Tanglewood", and was the recipient of a Prix Italia and Royal Philharmonic Society Award as music producer for the BBC Television film of Bela Bartok’s opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. Evans is a former trustee of the Masterprize Composers’ Competition and the Britten-Pears Foundation, a former director of The Britten Estate Ltd., and former chair of both the Concentric Circles Theatre Group and DreamArts. He is currently vice president of the Welsh Music Guild and a trustee of the Britten-Pears Will Trust.