Stephen Pettitt, a deeply experienced and widely renowned music critic with homes in London and France and a wide network of connections in both the music and journalism professions, now offers a comprehensive range of tailor-made music services which include journalism, programme note and sleeve note writing, the judging of music competitions, consultations for young musicians, talks, education projects, music appreciation holidays, rehearsal facilities, and the possibility of quiet retreat for composers and other creative artists who need isolation and calm.

Biography
A music graduate from Exeter University, Stephen Pettitt has enjoyed a successful career as a music critic and journalist for the past quarter of a century. He wrote his first review for The Times in 1980 and stayed with that paper for 15 years, adding to his client portfolio The Sunday Times - for which he has continued to write ever since - in the latter part of that association. In 1995 he began writing regularly for the Financial Times, and in 2002 was engaged as a music critic by the London Evening Standard. He has also contributed to The Observer, The Independent, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Express, writes occasionally for The Spectator, and in the specialist market for BBC Music Magazine, Opera Magazine, International Record  Review and others.  He has written programme and liner notes for many orchestras and record companies.

As a broadcaster he has appeared on BBC World Service and Radios Three and Four and as a commentator on the London scene for both Radio France Musique and Radio Suisse Romande.  His face has also been seen from time to time on television, and for BBC Television he wrote the script for the award-winning documentary The Art of Conducting. He has written two books - introductions to the music of Handel and to opera - and contributed to The New Grove.

Stephen is also an experienced  juror at all levels, exercising his judgment upon the young musicians of Lancing College, in the BBC Choir of the Year finals, for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards (for which he has served as a jury chairman), and for the Paolo Borciani String Quartet Competition  - thought by many to be the most prestigious such competition in the world - in Italy. As a speaker he has presented pre-concert talks at the Royal Festival Hall, in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and at the Wigmore Hall and has led educational seminars, for instance  for the London  International Piano Competition and at the London College of Music and Royal College of Music.

Stephen served a two-year term as the youngest ever President of the Critics’ Circle in 1995-6.  

Besides his musical and writing activities, Stephen enjoys simple cooking and complex cricket (the latter purely from a spectator’s point of view), is a devoted Francophile, and is proud to be a registered and active volunteer for Samaritans.