HE might look like Barry White - soul singer from the 70s, in case that's lost on you - but in his heart he's Sir John Barbirolli.

The unlikely fusion of these two musical opposites has produced Eric Hinton, Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra's first black conductor.

In fact, Eric is probably the only black conductor of classical music in Britain.

"They tell me that," he said in his deep Philadelphia drawl, "but I can't believe it.

"There must be someone else out there. But so far I haven't come across them."

So this 39-year-old son of a security guard and a secretary is one on his own.

He is also a fast- rising star on the classical music scene, having rapidly established his name since arriving in England from Germany in 1997.

As well as being recently appointed to the WSO job, Eric also wields the baton with Nottingham Symphony Orchestra and is associate conductor of Birmingham's Central England Ensemble.

It's all a far cry from his early days at high school in Philly.

While his friends were grooving to the Sound of Philadelphia, the young Hinton preferred classical music and jazz.

"We had an orchestra at high school and so I did some conducting there," he said.

"The school also had a marching band, like a lot of American schools do, and I was drum major, so I got the feel for leading a musical group."

His instrument was the trumpet and on moving to North Western University, just outside Chicago, he completed a degree in musical education.

However, the baton was his favourite and so he returned almost immediately to NWU for a master's degree in conducting.

"I guess there aren't so many black kids keen on conducting because it does take a lot of financial support and black families don't tend to be the ones with spare cash hanging about.

"My father was a security guard and my mother a secretary - I guess you'd call her a PA over here - so they weren't in well-paid jobs, but they really made sacrifices so I could go through university."

In 1990, Eric moved to Europe because he thought there might be more opportunities and for a while he conducted Berlin Chamber Wind, filling in the gaps with teaching work.

Then in 1997, he moved his family to England while he did a PhD at the Conservatoire in Birmingham and the Hinton family, father, mother and eight-year-old twins, now live in Erdington.

His appointment to the WSO was made early in the summer and Eric Hinton's first appearance as its conductor will be on Saturday, November 30, at Pershore Abbey.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said. "They're real nice people to work with."

Will he stamp his own style on their performances?

"I'm the kind of guy who likes to get the most out of the music. I guess you could call my style energetic," he added.

It should certainly be interesting for the 97-year-old WSO, which was originally formed back in 1905 by Sir Edward Elgar and Worcester Cathedral organist Sir Ivor Atkins, although it faded away in the mid-1930s and only resurfaced after the Second World War at the instigation of local musician Eric Holt.

Despite its venerability, the WSO has never been short on innovation and for most of the 1990s its conductor was a lady, Denise Ham, an accomplished cellist and pianist from Cheltenham.

Now a guy from Philadelphia will be climbing the rostrum to give it his all.

As Barry White would have growled, "Let the music play."