After playing second trombone in the Kent County Youth Orchestra in the late 1960s, and directing plays at university, Mike Allen became an award-winning journalist specialising in classical music and theatre reviews and interviews. Formative experiences included a summer working on a farm in Finland and absorbing the landscapes that helped to inspire the music of Sibelius – a lifelong passion – and sitting in the choir seats at the Royal Festival Hall in London, absorbing a broad repertoire while observing conductors such as a youthful Bernard Haitink and Claudio Abbado.
