Brian Cox is coming to the Keswick Theatre in Glenside on Friday at 8 p.m. Cox is professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester, as well as the Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science and a fellow of the Royal Society.
As a broadcaster, he has presented a number of highly acclaimed science programs for the BBC, boosting the popularity of subjects such as astronomy and physics and garnering a host of accolades, including two Royal Television Society awards and a Peabody Award for “Wonders Of The Solar System.”
Cox was born March 3, 1968, in the Royal Oldham Hospital, later living in nearby Chadderton. His parents worked for the Yorkshire Bank, his mother as a cashier and his father as a middle-manager in the same branch. He recalls a happy childhood that included pursuits such as dance, gymnastics and plane and bus spotting. He attended the private Hulme Grammar School from 1979 to 1986.
In the early 1990s, Cox was a keyboard player with the rock band Dare. Dare released two albums with Cox, “Out of the Silence” in 1988 and “Blood from Stone” in 1991. He subsequently joined dance act D:Ream, a group that had several hits in the UK charts.
Cox wrote the foreword of the official Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark biography, “OMD: Pretending to See the Future” (2018), having been an obsessive fan of the band in his youth. He has stated that their songs have shaped his character and inspired him to make music.
Cox continues to perform sporadically. In 2015, he appeared as a guest keyboardist during a performance of the song “Your Silent Face” by New Order. He played a live rendition of OMD’s “Enola Gay,” alongside front man Andy McCluskey in 2022. On June 29, 2024, Cox appeared at the Glastonbury Festival with D:Ream to perform “Things Can Only Get Better.”
He has also authored a series of best-selling books, including the widely acclaimed “Human Universe” and the recently released “Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos,” and is recognized as the foremost communicator for all things scientific. His critically acclaimed BBC series, “Forces of Nature,” aired in 2016 while he recently once again co-hosted “Stargazing Live.”
He holds two Guinness World Record titles for a science tour for his total sell-out debut tour, which began in 2016 and saw over 150,000 attend in total, including a sell-out show at The SSE Arena Wembley.
Cox studied physics at the University of Manchester during his music career. In 1991, he earned a bachelor of science degree with first-class honors in physics. After D:Ream disbanded in 1997, he completed his Ph.D. in high-energy particle physics at the University of Manchester in 1998.
His thesis, Double Diffraction Dissociation at Large Momentum Transfer, was supervised by Robin Marshall and based on research he did on the H1 experiment at the Hadron Electron Ring Anlage particle accelerator at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, Germany.
In 2003, Cox married American television presenter and writer Gia Milinovich in Duluth, Minn. They have a son, born in 2009, and Milinovich has a son from a previous relationship. They live in Battersea, England.
Tickets start at $123. For more information, go to keswicktheatre.com/events/.
