Dawn to Dusk
Inspiring the next generation of music lovers and mentoring young artists is an important part of our mission to share our expertise. Our Education Fund supports a range of imaginative year-round activities.
Richard Taylor composed the musicals Flowers For Mrs Harris (Sheffield Crucible, Chichester Festival Theatre) and The Go-Between (UK tour & West End, starring Michael Crawford), both Best Musical winners at the UK Theatre Awards; the operas Confucius Says (Hackney Empire, RPS Award winner) and Ludd & Isis (Royal Opera), and the dramatic cantata Calderland (Halifax Piece Hall, RPS Award winner). Most recently Richard has composed the opera The Moon Is Listening, commissioned by Garsington Opera, Grange Festival and four international companies. Other work includes commissions for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta Soloists, English National Opera, as well as music for almost 100 plays in theatres across the UK and West End.
lisa minerva luxx* is a British Syrian writer and activist. Poetry Review celebrated her work as “vigorously intellectual and politically febrile.” Her poems are regularly broadcast on Channel 4, BBC Radio 4 and published by Penguin, New England Review and others worldwide. In 2023 she has two new shows on tour: what the dog said to the harvest, an opera installation about the racism inherent in climate disaster; and Dawn to Dusk: The Moon is listening.
Recent Engagements: Eating the Copper Apple
Future Engagements: what the dog said to the harvest
*please note my name is de-capitalised intentionally, all publishing matter must follow suit
Karen Gillingham is a director, workshop leader, presenter and collaborator who passionately believes that engagement in the arts can have a transformative and profound effect on someone’s life and aims to widen access and provision through Opera and musical theatre.
Directing/Presenter credits include: Dalia Garsington Opera, GO Create the Opera Imaginarium Presenter/Co-Creator YouTube series, Future Visions & Our World The Grange Festival, Streetwise Opera Co-Lab Trinity Laban & Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, BBC PROM 66 Royal Albert Hall, A Tale of Two Dragons BBC Singers Barbican, Water in the Desert NYU Abu Dhabi, Bat out of Hackney Hackney Empire, A Trip to the Moon LSO Barbican - Sir Simon Rattle, Silver Birch Garsington Opera, Watchers in the Wings film Royal Opera House, Beautiful World National Theatre Abu Dhabi, Hospital Passion Play London V&A, Twenty Women Singing tour of prisons Welsh National Opera, Magna Carta – The Freedom Game Royal Albert Hall Surrey Arts, Out of the ruins Royal Opera House, Worldskills opening ceremony O2 London, South of the River English National Opera and Beached Opera North in Bridlington.
Jonathan Gill studied composition with William Mathias at UCNW, followed by two years in the Opera School of the Royal College of Music under James Lockhart.
Most recently he was MD for Beauty and the Beast (London Palladium and tour), the UK tour of The Lion King (also Associate MD at the Lyceum Theatre). The Go-Between (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Derby and Northampton) for which he was also MD, won the UK theatre award for best musical production 2012. Jonathan conducted 600 performances of The Sound of Music on its UK tour, starring Connie Fisher. Other credits include Of Thee I Sing and Let ‘Em Eat Cake (Opera North); The Wizard of Oz (Royal Festival Hall); Richard Taylor’s new opera, Confucius Says (Hackney Empire, RPS Award 2009); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (West Yorkshire Playhouse and Birmingham Rep); Follies (Royal and Derngate, Northampton); Carl Davis’s Alice in Wonderland (WYP/Birmingham Rep); Falstaff (MTL and film); The Jonah Boy (Stephen Joseph, Scarborough); Peribanez and Sleeping Beauty (Young Vic); and Putting It Together and Company (Library Theatre, Manchester). Jonathan arranged and conducted School4Lovers, a hip hop version of Così fan tutte (Glyndebourne, Finnish National Opera and Estonian National Opera); and was Musical Arranger for adaptations of Le nozze di Figaro, Carmen and Die Fledermaus (New Vic, Stoke).
Jonathan also conducted the premieres of Matthew King’s On London Fields (RPS Award 2005), and Odyssean Variations with cellist Natalie Clein (LSO St Luke’s).
Ruth is a set and costume designer for theatre, opera and dance. She trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course and currently holds a Lectureship in Design for Theatre at the University for the Creative Arts. Ruth has been an associate artist at Blind Summit since 2014.
Recent opera designs include productions for Longborough, Bregenz and Spoleto Festivals, the Abu Dhabi National Theatre, Hollywood Bowl LA, Princeton University and the Barbican.
Engagement, outreach and teaching forms part of Ruth’s practice and she is a lead artist for the Learning and Participation departments at Garsington Opera, English National Opera and the Royal Opera House where she also works on the annual Design Challenge. Ruth has designed many large scale community operas for ROH, Opera North, ENO and Garsington.
Lynsey enjoys a wide and varied music career as an operatic soprano, producer and vocal director. She has sung lead soprano roles with companies including Dorset Opera Festival, Buxton International Opera Festival, Iford Opera Festival, UK tours with Opera Della Luna, International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival, and the Wagner Society of Great Britain and the Mastersingers at the ROH. In concert she has performed at concert halls, festivals and cathedrals nationwide. Lynsey is passionate about arts in education, and for 20 years has created opera projects with organisations, in such diverse settings as schools, prisons, orphanages (Tajikistan), and with people with dementia and special needs. She is the Founder Director of Celebrate Voice Festival - an award-winning, multi-genre festival of voice in Wiltshire.
