Nicholas Daniel receives Musicians' Company Cobbett Medal

Oboist Nicholas Daniel OBE has this week been awarded the Musicians’ Company Cobbett Medal. Daniel receives the medal, presented by master of the Musicians' Company Jeff Kelly, for his services to chamber music.

The annual award was endowed by previous master of the Company, Walter Willson Cobbett and inaugurated by the Company in 1924. Selected by Members of the Court (the Company’s governing body), Daniel joins an illustrious list of previous winners including Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Ireland, Pablo Casals, Myra Hess, William Walton, Michael Tippett, Yehudi Menuhin, the Amadeus Quartet, Peter Maxwell Davies, John Gilhooly and Daniel’s own teacher Janet Craxton. A full list of recent winners can be found here.

Accepting his award, Daniel said: ‘Music for small forces without conductor has always and will always, whether we be Professional or Non-Professional, have highly relevant lessons to teach us all. And let’s not forget the composers, new chamber music is so wonderfully exciting, let’s grow even more opportunities for commissioning new work now that nobody is excluded.’

With a career lasting over four decades, Nicholas Daniel has significantly expanded the repertoire for the oboe. He has commissioned hundreds of new works and given premieres of works written for him by composers including Harrison Birtwistle, Henri Dutilleux, James MacMillan, Thea Musgrave, John Tavener and Michael Tippett.

In his acceptance speech Daniel also commented on the current state of the sector. He said: ‘Firstly, I will work as hard as I can to support the English BBC Orchestras and the BBC Singers, and the wider British groups should it become necessary. The suggested cuts and attacks on them are not only wrong but an embarrassing shambles.

Next, to the Arts Council: please don’t punish people for being good at what they do. The baffling cuts to opera and the Britten Sinfonia show a breathtaking lack of understanding about those organisations and their crucial importance.’

Also, let’s let every child in this country learn to play an instrument, read music and sing. Worthy though so many of our efforts to rebalance are in terms of class and race and inequality, the top down only approach is nonsensical. I can’t think of a single issue that we endlessly discuss that wouldn’t be healed and improved by this approach.’

As well as holding the role of music director with the Leicester International Music Festival and lunchtime series for twenty years, Daniel is a founder member of the award-winning Britten Sinfonia, the Haffner Wind Ensemble and the Britten Oboe Quartet. In 2012 he received the prestigious Queen’s Medal for Music, for his contribution to musical life in the UK.