Michael Stinton
michael.stinton@newcollegeschool.org
Michael was born into a musical family, starting the recorder as a child at his village primary school in Kent where his father was Headmaster. At the Judd grammar school in Tonbridge, Michael took up the oboe with his sister’s bassoon teacher and quickly progressed, becoming the principal oboist of the Kent County Youth Orchestra. Michael subsequently won the Hadow Open instrumental Scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford, where he read music, whilst studying the oboe with Janet Craxton in London. At Oxford he played the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the University Orchestra, with whom he also played principal oboe.
As an undergraduate, he enjoyed teaching the oboe at the Dragon School and at Westminster College – work which enabled him to keep his beloved Morris Minor on the road! Moving to London, Michael combined his music teacher training at UCL with some freelance playing and was able to combine these two passions in his first post as Assistant Director of Music and Head of Woodwind and Brass at St Paul’s School - where he met his wife, the painter, Clova Stuart Hamilton.
Happily for the couple, Clova’s move to teach at Radley College’s art department coincided with Michael’s appointment to Abingdon School as Director of Music, a post he enjoyed for 36 years, soon combining the role with his conductorship of the Thames Vale Youth Orchestra. Michael and Clova coninue to enjoy living in Oxford where Clova has a painting studio in the garden and Michael has returned to his oboe playing and teaching, together with some freelance music teaching at local schools. Their son, Hector, was a chorister at New College School and is now a teacher of French and Spanish at a large London academy school - whilst their daughter, Cecilia, is a freelance opera director.