CORE TEAM
Toria
Banks
Toria is a director, acting teacher, dramaturg, writer, and now producer, who lives with a neurological disability. She has been Resident Director at Trinity Laban since 2009, and has worked for major opera companies including English Touring Opera and the Royal Opera House. An experienced acting teacher, she led the Foundation Acting course at Arts Ed for five years. As a theatre director and dramaturg she has worked with a combination of new writing, old writing, collaborative devising, and physical theatre. She is also a commissioned playwright.
Toria is 38.
linda
hirst
Linda is a singer and singing teacher. An internationally-acclaimed mezzo soprano, she is especially known for performances of contemporary music, and has worked with composers including György Ligeti, Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze and Judith Weir. She was Head of Voice at Trinity Laban Conservatoire for 22 years, and is President of the Kathleen Ferrier Society. She has always worked across genre boundaries, and has recorded with The Who, Ivor Cutler, Nonclassical, and others.
Linda is 70.
simone
ibbett-brown
Simone is a mixed-race White British and Black Caribbean performer, director, administrator, and captioner. Away from opera, she has sung with artists including Akala, Benjamin Clementine and Jamie Cullum, and co-leads a cappella collective VOX. She has worked in administration for two major touring theatre companies, Cheek by Jowl and Paines Plough, where she led on accessible performances, and has experience as a director and assistant director of opera and new musical theatre. Simone is 26.
associates
EMMA BAILEY
designer
JESSICA COTTIS
conductor
YARIT DOR
fights, movement & intimacy director
ANGELA GASPARETTO
movement director
EMILY GRAY
performer
RUTH MARINER
writer, director, opera-maker
dr kate potts
poet & creative writing lecturer
sophia smith galer
journalist
alice wright
arts administrator
TRUSTEES
helen
innes
Helen studied cello at Trinity Laban. She was administrator of Centre of Young Musicians for five years, then
project manager for LSO Discovery. She now holds Sing and Sign classes for early years.
kalaiyashni
puvanendran
Kalaiyashni is a Diversity & Inclusion Consultant. She is currently a D&I Project Officer with the Wellcome Trust, a global health charity, where she worked in a team of two to set up the Diversity & Inclusion priority area. She was previously the Diversity & Inclusion Assistant Consultant at King’s College London.
ELIZA
THOMPSON
Eliza Thompson is a music consultant and composer for film, theatre, TV and radio. Last year, she co-produced
Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress with OperaGlass Works, a sell-out production at Wilton’s Music Hall.
She is also a trustee of the Golsoncott Foundation and The Classical Road Show.