"What had previously seemed careful and deliberate now appeared dappled with tender feelings. Was I now hearing more through my eyes than my ears?"
- The Times, Geoff Brown
"Exquisitely filmed"
- BBC Music Magazine, Michael White
Beyond the stages and concert halls, there's a hidden world of classical music. Magical moments that happen not in front of an audience, but in the practice-room, the recording studio and in the passion projects that drive musicians to dedicate their lives to seeking a single fleeting moment.
Fly On The Wall charts the fabric of UK classical music behind the closed doors of our cultural institutions, all through the barrell of a single, handheld camera.
Three hundred uncut FOTW sessions, 2015-23.
Curated into a collection of 8 music films and albums.
Stewart started his career as a Cambridge mathematician and top-10 firm M&A investment banker before being seduced by music and deciding to formally study guitar. Two years later he gained the highest recorded postgraduate guitar mark in the history of the Royal Academy of Music, receiving the DipRAM alongside his colleague Milos Karadaglic.
During 2012-14 he toured as soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the highlight a sold-out concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. He has been broadcast repeatedly on BBC Radio and Classic FM, including a live broadcast on Radio3's Boxing Day breakfast show with Suzy Klein and James May. He has worked with most of the major classical labels, and has albums with Harmonia Mundi USA, Naxos and Draft. He is a permanent member of Chroma Ensemble and previously TETRA guitar quartet. Collaborators include John Rutter, Tarik O'Regan, Paul Hillier, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The National Chamber Choir, Dame Felicity Palmer, Iestyn Davies, Jeremy Huw-Williams and Alan Clayton. In 2008 he founded Draft Audio Research which won the Deutsche Bank Award. He has produced, engineered and edited over 70 albums with the company, including two Gramophone Award winners.
In 2015 he founded Fly On The Wall, a film project and production company focussing on classical music. He has directed over 300 classical music videos and six long-form films. His films have been featured on BBC1, BBC2, Apple Music, ClassicFM and MarqueeTV. Institutional collaborators include the V&A South Kensington, the British Library, The Science Museum, Naxos Records, Apple Music, Platoon, Bechstein, Fazioli and Kawai.
Stewart is a visiting lecturer at the University of London, holds an MA in mathematics from Clare College Cambridge and a DipRAM from the Royal Academy of music and is an Associate of the Royal College of Music. In his spare time he is writing a book on the benefits of learning guitar for Penguin Life.
