HE has worked on some of the biggest stage musicals in London’s West End and also stood in front of some of the world’s leading orchestras.

This weekend John Rigby will be taking up the conductor’s baton at a special gala concert to celebrate the music of the ‘Waltz King’ at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.

The concert which will feature some of Johann Strauss’s most popular works will also include exquisitely choreographed routines plus soloists.

For John it’s all part of a jet-setting lifestyle which sees him travelling the world.

“It’s always good to be busy,” he said. “It’s one of those professions when you are just happy making music and it’s great when those opportunities come along so often and with such diversity.”

As well as touring the Strauss Gala, John is currently the musical supervisor of the hit musical School of Rock both in the UK and for the show’s North American tour, musical supervisor for Phantom on the Opera on its American tour and he will also conduct the English National Opera’s 30th anniversary production of Chess later this year.

It would seem a far cry from School of Rock to Strauss but John is equally home with both.

“It’s all about making music at the end of the day,” he said. “You apply the skills you have to whatever you do. You don’t have the same differentiation with actors who may do a sitcom and then a film and no-one says anything. With musicians, people do get pigeonholed.

“You do find that one area of music does feed another. So many classical pieces we do have an innate theatricality to them. With Strauss especially there is a strong theatrical element These pieces weren’t meant to be done purely as something just to sit and listen to. They were written to be danced, it is dance music.”

For the gala concerts, John also introduces the pieces.

“I will have a little chat with audience,” he said. “People are not there for an academic exercise and I think it’s nice to be told a little anecdote about what Strauss was doing when he wrote a particular piece or just to hear something to put it into context.

“It makes the concert experience a whole bigger experience. I certainly don’t think it’s wrong for a conductor to turn round and talk to the audience.”

Born in St Helens, the concert will give John the chance to return to the North West - he studied conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

“I played piano and flute when I was younger but I was was never really that good,” he said. “I discovered from an early the way I could express myself best was physically and conducting was where I found my home.

“I did ballroom dancing as a child so coming back to Strauss is lovely.

“I think I’m more inclined to take a waltz around the floor than to get behind a keyboard again. It’s always a joy to perform these concerts as they have a grace and elegance to them.”

Johann Strauss Gala, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Sunday, December 14. Details from 0161 907 9000 or www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk