Simon Andrew Thomas Standage (born 8th November 1941 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire) is an English violinist and conductor best known for playing and conducting music of the baroque and classical eras on original instruments.

Biography and Career

From 1963-1967 he studied music at King's College, Cambridge University in 1963, following which he won a Harkness Fellowship to study with Ivan Galamian in New York City from 1967 to 1969.

After a 1972 Wigmore Hall debut, he became a founding member of Trevor Pinnock's period-instrument ensemble The English Concert. He was first violinist of The English Concert from 1972 to 1991, recording and performing many violin concertos by Bach (playing violino piccolo in Brandenburg Concerto no.1), Vivaldi, Corelli, Handel, and others, including Le quattro stagioni by Vivaldi, which received a Grammy nomination. During this time, he played modern violin with the English Chamber Orchestra from 1974 to 1978 and led the City of London Sinfonia from 1980 to 1989, as well as playing baroque violin under Christopher Hogwood in The Academy of Ancient Music. In 1981 he was a founder of the Salomon Quartet (with Micaela Comberti, violin II, Trevor Jones, viola, and Jennifer Ward Clarke, cello), a period-performance quartet specialising in the classical quartet and quintet repertory, performing works by Mozart, Haydn, and others.

From 1991 to 1995 he was associate director of The Academy of Ancient Music. During this time he became the first to record Mozart's violin concertos using period-performance instruments and practices. In 1990, he and Richard Hickox founded the group Collegium Musicum 90, a period-performance group varying in size from two musicians (in sonatas) to full orchestra and chorus (for oratorios) with which he has made many recordings as both conductor and violin soloist. He has also made regular collaboration with Collegium Musicum Telemann in Osaka and Haydn Sinfonietta in Vienna. With Susan Alexander-Max (fortepiano) and Jennifer Ward Clarke (cello) he plays in chamber group The Music Collection.

He has been a professor of baroque violin at the Royal Academy of Music since 1983, and taught baroque violin and conducting at the Akademie für Alte Musik Oberlausitz in Görlitz since 1993.