Professor Raymond Holden studied at Sydney, Cologne and London and has worked as a conductor, writer, broadcaster and lecturer
Between 1978 and 1989, Professor Holden was assistant to Sir John Pritchard CBE, for whom he acted as associate conductor with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Brussels Opera.
He also acted in that capacity for Sir John at the Proms, the Royal Festival Hall and at the Salzburg, Edinburgh and City of London Festivals. Between 1980 and 1991, Professor Holden conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the New Symphony Orchestra of London, the Wren Orchestra, the Danish Radio Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Emilia-Romagna and at the Montepulciano Festival.
In recent years, Professor Holden has published extensively with the Musical Times, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Music & Letters, Performance Practice Review, Richard Strauss-Blätter, Richard Strauss Jahrbuch, International Record Review, Classical Recordings Quarterly, Studien und Berichte, Wagner News, The Delius Society Journal, UWA Publishing, BMG Classics, ICA Classics, EMI Records and Warner Classics. As music advisor to the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, he has contributed forty-eight signed articles to the Dictionary. For Cambridge University Press, he has written chapters for the firm’s Companion to Conducting and Companion to Richard Strauss, two chapters for Richard Strauss in Context and, with Stephen Mould, The Marks of a Maestro: Annotating Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony.
Professor Holden has appeared on BBC Radio, BBC Television, ABC Radio, Classic FM (South Africa), 3MBS FM (Melbourne), Vision Australia Radio, SRF (Switzerland), LBC, Danish Radio and Television and RAI Radio and Television. Along with the renowned mezzo-soprano, Brigitte Fassbaender, he appeared in Eric Schulz’s critically acclaimed documentary on Richard Strauss, At the End of the Rainbow, which received its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in 2014 and its German premiere at Berlin’s Philharmonie later that year.
As the organiser and presenter of the Academy’s ‘The Barbirolli Lectures’ and ‘The Henry Wood Lectures’, Professor Holden interviewed publicly Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Neville Marriner, Leif Segerstam, Edward Gardner, Vladimir Jurowski, Dame Jane Glover, Sian Edwards, Joanna MacGregor, Leon Fleisher, Denis O’Neill, Ryland Davies, Paul Badura-Skoda, Dame Anne Evans, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Yvonne Minton, Yvonne Kenny, Dame Ann Murray, Sarah Walker, Sheila Armstrong, Ian Partridge, John Williams, Sir Stephen Hough, Steven Isserlis, György Pauk, James Ehnes, Erich Grunberg, Jonathan Del Mar, John Suchet, Eric Schulz, Tony Palmer, Humphrey Burton and Bruno Monsaingeon.
Professor Holden was appointed Professor of the University of London in February 2016 and a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Australian Queen’s Birthday Honours List.