Stewart French

A top-class musician and technical obsessive, Stewart provides Draft with a key link between the art and the science of audio production.

Stewart graduated in 2003 with a Masters degree in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. In 2006 he completed his postgraduate study in classical guitar performance at London's Royal Academy of Music, receiving the department's highest final postgraduate recital mark to date. He was consequently awarded the renowned DipRAM - the most prestigious performance award conferred by the Academy - for 'an outstanding final recital'.

Stewart has recorded with labels including Naxos, Universal Classics and Jazz and Collegium Records. He has worked on a variety of new music, in particular recording and editing two new chamber works by John Rutter and performing the premiere recording of Rutter's only song cycle - a recording which reached no. 3 in the UK classical charts. In 2006, Stewart researched and edited a new edition of Walton's Five Bagatelles for Guitar and his subsequent recording has become a standard reference, being one of the only two recordings to be cited by Oxford University Press' The Walton Edition (the other being Julian Bream's classic premiere).

Since his introduction to location recording in 2001, Stewart has become an expert in all aspects of the recording and production process. With a particular passion for minimal microphone techniques, he has an extensive knowledge of stereo recording practices/equipment and has recorded a multitude of classical and jazz ensembles. His mixing abilities were recently recognised by one of the world's best known mastering engineers, Bob Katz, who on hearing the Facets project commented "Your mix is excellent, make that superb! I think there is something magical about this master."

Accompanying this love of album production is a keen interest in DSP and acoustics. Stewart is an obsessive reader on the mathematics of instrument and room acoustics, with a particular interest in the experimental analysis of instrument impulse responses.