Horn player Anthony Halstead was born in Manchester, attending Chetham's School and the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he studied piano, horn, organ and composition. His teacher was Sydney Coulston, a distinguished contemporary of Dennis Brain, who played Principal horn in the Hallé and the BBC Northern Orchestras.

After leaving college Tony took several 'refresher' lessons with Horace Fitzpatrick and Myron Bloom. Subsequently he studied the harpsichord with George Malcolm and conducting with Michael Rose and Sir Charles Mackerras. As a horn player he has held Principal positions with the London Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, The Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert, The Hanover Band and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

He made his first solo CD in 1986, recording Weber's Concertino on the natural horn, with The Hanover Band, for the Nimbus Record Company. Other solo CDs include the Concertos by Joseph and Michael Haydn, and two separate recordings, six years apart, of the Mozart Concertos, with The Hanover Band and The Academy of Ancient Music.

His work as a Conductor and Director in the period-instrument movement increasingly takes him to those 'modern' orchestras whose players, using conventional instruments, wish to develop a stylistic awareness of authentic practice in the baroque, classical and romantic eras. He has had a long association with The Hanover Band, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra and the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra.

He has conducted or directed over 50 recordings, including the Beethoven and Dvorak Violin Concerti with Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the symphonies of JM Kraus and concertos by JH Roman for Musica Sveciae, Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and concertos by Vivaldi, with The Hanover Band, for EMI (re-released in June 2004 on 'Classics for Pleasure'), plus the complete Drottningholm Music by JH Roman and all Boccherini's Cello Concertos, with Tim Hugh as soloist, for Naxos. On a visit to Sweden, he was presented with a 'gold disc' by Naxos to commemorate the sale of over 40,000 CDs of the 'Drottningholm Music' in Sweden alone. Anthony completed a 7-year project with The Hanover Band, recording, on 22 CDs, all the orchestral music of JC Bach for the German company cpo, during the course of which he played solo harpsichord or fortepiano in the 27 keyboard concertos, whilst directing the orchestra from the keyboard.