Hello! My name is Miguel Lawrence. I am a musician specialising in playing the recorder. I was born in Mexico. My mother was Mexican and my father was British.

In both the Mexican and British sides of my family, there are performing and visual artists, the closest being my daughter Camila Lawrence who is a fashion designer.  Other close relatives who work in the arts are Remigio Valdés De Hoyos (painter), Peter Lawrence (trumpeter/composer), Dr Martin Lawrence (hornist), Jo Lawrence (violinist), Daniel Armas (psalterist), Stephen Lawrence (cellist), Dr Kate Lawrence (vertical dancer), Cecilia Valdés De Hoyos-Diemecke (flautist), Rosa Guadalupe Valdés De Hoyos (guitarist/singer), Jeremy Lawrence (pianist), Stan Lawrence (trumpeter/composer) and Nona Lawrence (tubist/violinist). 

In the 1970s, in Monterrey, Mexico, I began studying music with maestro Nicandro Tamez (1931-1985), who was my mentor. In the 1980s, in the United Kingdom, I graduated with distinction from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and I became a member of the European Union Baroque Orchestra, based at the University of Oxford, where I took lessons from the famous recorder player Frans Brüggen (1934-2014), specialising in the authentic performance of baroque music on historical period instruments. At present, however, I prefer to play all music, including the baroque, on modern rather than historical instruments. Other teachers who taught me in person the recorder or the flute were, in Mexico Gildardo Mojica (1934-1992), Ignacio Guzmán (1942-2013) and Elena Durán; in the UK Paul Cheneour, Philip Pickett, Stephen Preston, Rainer Schuelein (1930? -2015), Barthold Kuijken and Lisa Beznosiuk.

I have played in public since I was a child, mostly classical music, but also other genres. Some of my recordings have been released by well-established record labels.  In 2016 I created and led, with private and government funding, the social inclusion project 'Diez Mil Flautas', providing 10,000 students with recorders and teaching them how to play them, in 40 different secondary schools in marginal urban areas in the state of Nuevo León, Mexico, to become the second-ever largest recorder ensemble in the world to perform in public. In 2020 I took part in Britain's Got Talent television show, reaching the semifinals by playing a medley of classical and pop music. 

In 2022 I obtained a master's degree with distinction from Kingston University London, where I won the MMus Prize for outstanding achievement in music performance. In 2023, I hope to start doctoral research on the ‘post-authentic revival of the modern Dolmetsch recorder*' at a university in London, whilst continuing with my career as a recorder player.

*The modern Dolmetsch recorder is used by Paul McCartney in 'The Fool on the Hill', Led Zeppelin in 'Stairway to Heaven' (studio version featuring John Paul James on recorders), Carl Dolmetsch in his series of classical concerts from 1939 to 1989 at the Wigmore Hall in London, and by other recorder players in the second half of the 20th century.