If you switch on BBC Radio 3 at 19.30 tonight, you'll hear Corpus Alumna Helen Harrison make her BBC Radio 3 conducting debut, directing the BBC Concert Orchestra in an attractive programme of some classic and rarely heard British light orchestral music and other works including the beguiling slow movement from Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp. 

Director of Music Nick Danks says, "This is a tremendous milestone in Helen's burgeoning conducting career, and it is also a particular delight for me because Helen was one of my fellow undergrad music students at Corpus, matriculating with me in 1993. It was the chance to conduct the Bene't Club orchestra on several occasions whilst an undergrad (as well as some University ensembles) which proved to be a life-changing opportunity for Helen and she now has a busy professional conducting career, centred mainly but not entirely around her native Lancashire, but increasingly expanding nationally."

About Helen Harrison

Helen Harrison is the Music Director of Young Sinfonia, the Royal Northern Sinfonia's Youth Orchestra. She has been guest conduction for BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, Northern Silents Sinfonia and Southbank Sinfonia, amongst others.

Helen wrote in a blogpost recently, "At my final concert at Cambridge a player asked if I was going to music college to study conducting. I had no idea that this was something people did. Anyway, as a comprehensive school student, from an old mill town in Lancashire, I needed to get a job after graduating.

Fast forward a few years and I found myself in a corporate career at a senior level but felt something wasn’t right; I knew I wasn’t being true to myself. I had to pursue my dream to become a conductor, so I said goodbye to my corporate life. The rest is history."

Read more about Helen's musical journey on her website.