Imogen Burman

Imogen Burman graduated in Music majoring in performance on the cello from Dartington College of Arts. She has worked as an administrator for Dame Emma Kirkby and the Consort of Musicke, EMI, Finchcocks Musical Museum, Dartington International Summer School and as Production and Services Manager at the British Music Information Centre, where she managed the New and Contemporary Voices composers schemes.

Imogen’s main area of specialism is contemporary British classical music, and she has had several pieces dedicated to her by leading composers, including Michael Finnissy, Tansy Davies, Laurence Crane and Dave Smith. She also worked closely with many early music performers, and she was in the vocal group Vox Animae, recording a CD and filming a DVD of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, and performing at the York Early Music Festival, The Hildegard Conference in Germany, Copenhagen Early Music Festival (plus broadcast on Danish Radio) and Dartington International Summer School.

She has also worked with many internationally renowned conductors and ensembles during her time at Dartington International Summer School, including the Dufay Collective, Il Fagiolini, Anthony Rooley, Dame Emma Kirkby, Jiří Bělohlávek and Robert Tear.

As a cellist, Imogen regularly performs with Sinfonia Tamesa, and has worked on the BBC TV series Maestro, where she was “conducted” by Sue Perkins, Goldie, Alex James (from Blur) and Bradley Walsh. She has also played with the band Amphibic, fronted by singer-songwriter Neal Hoffmann and KRAWWL, the avant-garde/experimental/noise ensemble. 

In 2017-18, Imogen took a year's sabbatical to travel the Americas, overlanding from Alaska to Argentina on a 1991 Honda Africa Twin motorbike. On her return she presented at the Overland Event in Oxfordshire and is currently writing a book about her travels, having previously motorbiked across 28½ countries before joining the Department of Music in January 2008. Since that time, she has expanded the annual PureGold Music Festival, which has grown from a two week event to over six weeks and fifty-plus concerts, including opera, popular music, world, electronics, chamber and vocal music.

Imogen is also an active sports woman, having studied Shodokan Aikido for 15 years where she also trained in Japan at the Shodokan Aikido Hombu (Headquarters) and competed both nationally and internationally, gaining gold, silver and bronze medals in UK Championships, she is now a distance trail runner.