Fiona Maddocks – Critic and Author

Fiona Maddocks played music as a young girl at the Royal College of Music on Saturdays, but after a frightening experience at a Masterclass with Nadia Boulanger, she knew for certain she didn’t want to be on stage, or indeed be the centre of attention at all. While studying English at Cambridge, she spent her spare time playing the violin with chamber groups and orchestras, before setting out in London as a young hopeful writer and finding the doors well and truly shut. From her early role running a radio switchboard for incoming calls, via politics and current affairs, Fiona was later part of the team that set up Channel 4, was the first music editor of The Independent and founding editor of BBC Music Magazine.  She was also chief Arts feature writer of the Evening Standard, and is the author of four books from Hildegard von Bingen to Harrison Birtwistle, all of which she negotiated alongside the demands of bringing up a young family, almost single-handedly. Now, as Chief Music Critic of The Observer, Fiona is the only woman in that role on a UK broadsheet newspaper. Fiona’s books can be found here and her literary agency can be found here