I am Artistic Director & CEO of Waterperry Opera Festival(2017-); a unique and innovative opera festival hosted at the beautiful Waterperry House & Gardens in Oxfordshire. The festival offers accessible and socially relevant productions, created and performed by a diverse community of artists, which bridge the gap between performer and spectator. We successfully produced our inaugural festival in August 2018; a sold-out festival for 1,000 attendees, of 5-star nationally reviewed new productions for a broad and diverse audience, made by a community of 80 young emerging artists. The 2019 festival say 2,000 attendees attend a 4-day festival of 6 shows, including 4 new productions. In August 2020, post lockdown, I produced a sold-out mini-festival at Waterperry; the first opera festival and full length opera performed since March 2020 in the UK.
I am Artistic Director of Indomitable (2013-); We create performances that challenge and combine the forms of opera, classical music, theatre, puppetry and dance. Our mission is to develop high quality work by inviting early career artists of all creative disciplines to explore their practice through a process of collaboration with others. Every project we do has an outreach element connecting our work back to our audiences and community. Past shows include, 'Britten’s Five Canticles' (2013), 'Innocence and Experience' (2014), a concert 'Bach to Front' (2014), 'Photo Finish' (2015), outreach project 'An Album of Memories' (2016), 'Still Falls the Rain' (2016) and 'A Winter's Journey' (2018).
Learning & Participation
I have a passion for engaging communities and bringing them together with artists to share and explore the world around us. For Waterperry Opera Festival I am Head of Learning & Participation, overseeing a programme of talks, masterclasses and workshops, as well as curate the festival's Young Artist Programme. For Indomitable I have curated Learning & Participation projects including 'Movement for Instrumentalists' (2017) with Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and 'Album of Memories' (2016) with Age UK. In addition I have worked with RAM Open Academy, Glyndebourne Education, English Touring Opera, Opera Holland Park Inspire and Clonter Opera to deliver projects and workshops.