Michael Eveleigh was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music where he studied Piano and Organ from 1942 – 1947 (including a break for the war, and hospitalisation where he met his wife Ruth). Following a year’s postgraduate study he was appointed Director of Music of Monmouth School in 1950, where he remained until his retirement in 1986. During that time he built up an embryonic Music Department to one of very high standing. He was made an honorary Associate of the the Royal Academy of music in 1961 and following his retirement he was made a Freeman of the Haberdasher’s Company and a Freeman of the City of London.
Michael’s association with the Orchestral Society goes back to the mid-1950s when he performed two piano concertos, namely Mozart’s 23rd and Beethoven’s 3rd, both of which were highly praised by Kenneth Loveland, the well known music critic of the day.
He became the Conductor of the Orchestral Society and enlarged the repertoire to include symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Franck, Mozart, Sibelius and Tchaikowsky and well-known concertos by Bruch, Elgar, Mendelssohn and Mozart. In addition, Michael has introduced lesser known works such as Koussevitsky’s Double Bass Concerto and Canteloube’s ‘Songs of the Auvergne’.