Paul Kildea is a professional conductor and pianist (director of the Four Winds Festival in Australia and a former director of the Wigmore Hall in London) who writes about music with the insight of an insider. In 2013 Allen Lane/Penguin published his outstanding biography of Benjamin Britten to enormous acclaim. It is now widely recognised as the best book on its subject: the Financial Times called it 'unquestionably the music book of the year'. He lives in Berlin.