How did you start playing the violin?

So I started playing the violin when I was six years old. I had just seen a Nigel Kennedy violin concert of the Four Seasons and I was very much inspired by that, and that, of course, led me to [other instruments]. I played the piano for a while, as well, and all that orchestral background led me into conducting, and things like that.

How do you deal with pre-performance nerves?

It's all about making sure that you know you're prepared: it's very much a mental game, like an athlete. A lot of it is mental, and it's definitely about just making sure you enjoy what you do. That's essentially what it all comes down to, I think.

How has studying music changed your approach to playing?

Academia has definitely helped the way I approach performance. Funnily enough, only about five or ten percent of the course is practical performance; a lot of it is essays, and history, and logic and philosophy. So that's definitely helped broaden my mind to the possibilities of music and what that can offer beyond the stage.

How do you reconcile performing music with your Cambridge workload?

I think it's always really hard when you're trying to juggle different things: there aren't enough hours in a day. For example, I've just spent a week with the singers just going through the opera and going through the score and working with them and that's even before term has started. And this is the first day of term and I already feel a bit exhausted. But as long as it's rewarding, I think you can never have enough energy from things like that. 

What does conducting mean to you?

I see the conductor more as a prism than anything else. You've got the performers, the conductor and the audience, and the conductor is definitely binding those two external elements together.

When you're standing in front of an orchestra, you've got one hundred different interpretations of the same piece, and you have to somehow justify that and make that into one for the audience to receive.

Varsity Introducing: Jay Richardson

What can you tell us about the opera you are conducting?

So this is the first opera I've conducted. It's Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia and – funnily enough – it's based on Shakespeare's poem, Le Viol de Lucrèce. And it's an absolutely gorgeous piece – very haunting sometimes, like much of Britten's music is. 

It will definitely appeal to a wide audience, because having Shakespearean roots will appeal to English Literature students, being based in Ancient Rome will definitely see the History and Classic students take an interest.

What are your plans for the future?

I'd definitely like to pursue both [performing and conducting]. I think my main ambition is to be a conductor, and that's definitely something I went to Cambridge for: to be in such an environment where I can conduct and get my friends together to run through a piece or even put on an opera. So that's definitely my primary goal.

Stephanie Childress will be conducting Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia from Thursday 26th January to Saturday 28th January at 8pm in the Palmerston Room of St John's College. Student tickets are £5 and available here