Frederick Waxman
Conductor, Harpsichord
Frederick Waxman is a conductor and multi-instrumentalist from London. He read Experimental Psychology at University College, Oxford, where he was an Academic Exhibitioner, Instrumental Scholar, and Choral Scholar. He then completed an MMus in Performance at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, as well as further musical studies as a harpsichordist with James Johnstone and Carole Cerasi. Frederick performs music across a range of genres and has played on stages from the Wiener Musikverein and Opera Holland Park, to Latitude Festival.
In 2021, Frederick founded Figure in order to pursue his passion for historically-informed performance. Figure's inaugural concert, a performance of Bach's St John Passion at St Bartholomew the Great, was a sell-out with Michael Church, critic for The Independent, writing that the performance:
"raised the hairs on the back of the neck… the work took wing, with [Figure] magnificently delivering its climactic moments of terror and joy… The whole performance had a thrilling immediacy”.
Since then, Frederick has led Figure in performances of Requiems by Fauré and Charpentier at Union Chapel, an immersive performance of Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri at the Swiss Church in London (★★★★ The Times), and in June 2022 he first brought Figure to Opera Holland Park with Handel's Serse, prompting The Guardian to label the group as one to watch:
"Figure clearly has good ideas, good musicians and good support, so expect to see more of them."
Frederick returned to Opera Holland Park with Figure in June-July 2023 to conduct Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream as the company staged Shakespeare's much-loved play with the composer's enchanting incidental score.
Prior to Figure, Frederick staged Britten's Curlew River, which was praised as “a pearl of a production”by Richard Bratby of The Spectator, and “a dedicated and moving production” by Rupert Christiansen of The Telegraph. He is also Musical Director of the New Renaissance Collective, for whom he arranges and reworks Renaissance music.
Besides musical direction and performing, Frederick composes and arranges music for theatre and film. Theatre highlights include Timetravellers at Teatr Lesi (Lviv, Ukraine), Five Years With The White Man (VAULT Festival), and AMERICA! with Voloz Collective for Ars Nova’s AntFest in New York, and a recent film highlight is debut feature score Strasbourg, currently on the festival circuit. He has also performed with Voloz in their Theatre Weekly award-winning Edinburgh Fringe show, one they reprised in Paris in May 2023. Frederick will tour with Voloz in 2024 to Mexico and the USA .
