Mike Batt LVO, is one of Britain’s most successful songwriters, arranger/conductors, record producers and recording artists, having composed, arranged and produced both pop and classical hits for many artists from Cliff Richard to Vanessa Mae and Art Garfunkel. He has sold millions of records as a solo artist.
Mike’s initial success was in creating the Wombles pop group, achieving eight top 30 hits in the UK in the early seventies. Wearing a Womble costume made by his mother, he appeared on television many times as Orinoco, the lead singer of the band. He wrote and produced “Bright Eyes”, – Art Garfunkel’s international number one single, and collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the song “Phantom of The Opera”. He has won five Ivor Novello Awards (the UK’s songwriting “Oscar”).
Mike has released six solo albums as a singer on Epic Records (Sony), and in the UK had a top 5 single with “Summertime City” in 1976.
He made his concert debut as a conductor at the Barbican with the LSO in 1984, and has since conducted many of the world’s great orchestras including the LSO, LPO and RPO in various programmes and/or recordings of well-known repertoire pieces such as “The Planets Suite” (Holst), – [recently released on Guild Records with the Royal Philharmonic] “Scheherazade” (Rimsky Korsakov) and “Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture” (Tchaikovsky).
In 1990 he was appointed as a member of the Government Working Group for music in the school curriculum. He was commissioned to write the official Anthem for the inauguration of the Channel Tunnel by Her Majesty The Queen and President Mitterrand. He wrote a special piece, “Royal Gold” commissioned by the military for the Queen and The Duke Of Edinburgh¹s 50th Wedding anniversary. This was performed for Her Majesty at the Royal Tournament, by the massed bands of the Guards, plus 100 pipers.
Mike’s Dramatico record label grew to become one of the leading UK based independent record labels in Europe, selling 11 million records with his protege, Katie Melua.
He was created Lieutenant Of The Royal Victorian Order by The Queen in the 2010 Birthday Honours list.
Currently Mike is working on a new audio recording of his show “The Hunting Of The Snark”, the original of which featured Sir John Gielgud, John Hurt, Art Garfunkel, Cliff Richard, Captain Sensible, Roger Daltrey and Deniece Williams.