For its 9th May 2026 chamber concert, the Milton Keynes Sinfonia is pleased to welcome Catherine Rose to rehearse and conduct the orchestra.

Catherine has worked as a tutor and conductor for youth and amateur orchestras for her entire professional life, alongside her work as an arts education consultant, writer and teacher. She studied conducting at Bristol University with Kenneth Mobbs and Derek Bourgeois, and then at Canford Summer School with George Hurst and Michael Rose, and others including Denise Ham, Robert Houlihan and Rudolfo Saglimbeni.
As a horn player, she studied with leading professionals including James Beck, Colin Horton, Tim Brown and Julian Baker, and studied hand-horn with Tony Halstead. She is proud to have been a member of MK Sinfonia’s horn section for around 35 years.
She had a long association with the Bedfordshire Music Service and the Bedfordshire Music Trust, and has conducted orchestras and ensembles locally and further afield, including the Buckinghamshire Chamber Orchestra, Milton Keynes Sinfonia, the Djanogly Community Orchestra and the Newton Ensemble. She runs a rehearsal orchestra in her home town of Olney. She also conducts the Weston Underwood Singers, the Guild Singers and the MK University of the Third Age Choir. She conducted the Open University Orchestra from 2017-24, including Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto with Dame Evelyn Glennie as soloist for the OU’s 40th anniversary gala.
She appears as a guest conductor with Alina Orchestra for their annual I Am Woman concert, celebrating International Women’s Day. In March 2026, she premiered Pioneer Sketches, a new work by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, celebrating women in science, which was commissioned specially for Catherine and Alina Orchestra.