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LIST OF PARTICIPANTSBIOGRAPHIESWOMEN OPERA MAKERS WORKSHOPJUNE 29 — JULY 3, 2020

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WOMEN OPERA MAKERS WORKSHOPThe Académie du Festival d’Aix has adapted and developed new online training programs in order to continue to carry out its mission of training and accompanying young musicians in their professional development. Country borders currently pose a challenge to an artist’s mobility and so it becomes important to create new work spaces and meeting places which allow for the preservation of the vital links and intercultural dialogue at the heart of these programs.The training programs were created through a process of reflection and ongoing exchange with the artists and pedagogical experts who were initially involved in training sessions that were scheduled to take place in Aix during the 2020 edition of the Festival d’Aix. Through these newly adapted programs, the Académie du Festival d’Aix continues to defend its values which include artistic excellence, innovation, the expression of cultural diversity, and activities which promote social inclusion.

For the fifth year in a row, the Académie du Festival d’Aix is running an empowerment programme for female opera creators – composers, authors, stage directors and conductors – in the middle of their careers. This 5-day programme is led by the stage director Katie Mitchell and aims to offer tools, support and advice for women working in the opera industry, in order to help them grow stronger in their art, improve their ability to communicate this art, and develop the skills needed to navigate a male-dominated profession. This year the workshop will take place online. Female creators will have the opportunity to e-meet artists and professionals, such as the conductor Susanna Mälkki and the playwright Sofi Oksanen, two of the artists at the heart of the creation of the opera Innocence, which was initially scheduled to have its world premiere at the 2020 edition of the Festival d’Aix but has now been deferred to a later date.

This workshop is supported by SACD.

This Women Opera Makers workshop is an workshop.enoa (European Network of Opera Academies), which was founded by the Festival d’Aix and its Académie, was born in 2009 from the wish of a number of operatic institutions to work more closely together to support the professional integration of the young artists and to support the development of their artistic ambitions.With the backing of Creative Europe programme, enoa has been working to provide young artists with a first-rate training pathway using contemporary, multidisciplinary approach to opera; to give them experience of performing and of the creative process; and to support the development and dissemination of new operatic works which contribute to diversifying audiences.Thirteen members, over a thousand young artists and some three hundred professionals make up the enoa community.

MENTOR

KATIE MITCHELLSTAGE DIRECTOR

PARTICIPANTS

CHRIS BUSH — PLAYWRIGHTVIOLETA CRUZ — COMPOSERPENDA DIOUF — PLAYWRIGHTBEATRIZ FERNÁNDEZ AUCEJO — CONDUCTORSAMANTHA FERNANDO * — COMPOSERSTACY HARDY — PLAYWRIGHTANNA HIMALI HOWARD — STAGE DIRECTOR DANIELA KERCK — STAGE DIRECTORCARMEN C. KRUSE — STAGE DIRECTORPATRICIA MARTINEZ — COMPOSERNATALIE MURRAY BEALE — CONDUCTORSILVINA PERUGLIA — CONDUCTORHELENA RÖHR — STAGE DIRECTORSITA THOMAS — STAGE DIRECTOR

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european-network-of-opera-academies * Participant supported by institutions members of enoa network:Snape Maltings – Aldeburg

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After studying literature, British artist Katie Mitchell began her career as an assistant in theatres, including the Royal Shakespeare Company. That’s where she directed, upon returning in 1996 from a cycle of residences in Eastern European (and particularly Polish) theatres, Euripides’s The Phoenician Women, which was enthusiastically received. Her company, Classics on a shoestring, then started creating ever more successful and acclaimed shows, reimagining classics from Greece, Britain, Scandinavia and Russia and giving them new life through her sense of rhythm and use of music, dance and video in her directions. Working with the most prestigious British and German theatres, Katie Mitchell has also led projects for television or the opera and experimented with innovative forms, adapting novels for the theatre and collaborating with her contemporaries such as the writer Martin Crimp or the scientist Stephen Emmott, with whom she created Ten Billion in 2012.Katie Mitchell has been an Associate Director at the RSC, National Theatre and The Royal Court Theatre. She was awarded an OBE in 2009 for services to drama and has recently been appointed as the Visiting Chair in Opera Studies at Oxford University for 2016-2017.Recent theatre includes: Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court); 4.48 Psychosis (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); The Maids (Toneelgroep, Amsterdam); Shadows (Eurydice Speaks) (Schaubühne, Berlin); Cleansed (National Theatre); Ophelia’s Room (Schaubühne, Berlin and Royal Court); Reisende auf einem Bein (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); Happy Days (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); Brandstichter Festival: a remounting of five previous productions of Katie Mitchell’s work (Stadschouwburg, Amsterdam); 2071 (Royal Court); The Cherry Orchard (Young Vic); The Forbidden Zone (Salzburg Festival and Schaubühne, Berlin); A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (Vienna Burgtheater); Lungs, The Yellow Wallpaper (Schaubühne, Berlin); Everything Else You Know from the Movies (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); Say it with Flowers, The Trial of Ubu (Hampstead Theatre); Night Train (Schauspiel, Cologne, Avignon Festival and Theater Treffen), Ten Billion (Royal Court, Avignon Festival); Rings of Saturn, Waves (Schauspiel, Cologne), Hansel & Gretel, A Woman Killed with Kindness (National Theatre), De Meiden (Avignon Festival).Recent opera includes: Ariadne auf Naxos et Pelléas et Mélisande (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); Lucia di Lammermoor (Covent Garden); Alcina (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); The Way Back Home (ENO/Young Vic); Trauernacht and The House Taken Over (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); Le Vin herbé (Staatsoper, Berlin); Written on Skin (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Covent Garden); Al gran sole carico d’amore (Staatsoper, Berlin and Salzburg Festival); Orest (Dutch National Opera) and Clemency (Covent Garden).Film and television includes: Untitled Short Film (Warp/ Film4); The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, Jenůfa, Rough for Theatre 2 and The Turn of the Screw.

MENTORKATIE MITCHELLSTAGE DIRECTOR UNITED KINGDOM

Chris Bush is an award-winning playwright, lyricist and theatre-maker. Her recent productions include Fautus: That Damned Woman (Headlong/Lyric Hammersmith), The Last Noël (Attic Theatre/United Kingdom tour), The Assassination of Katie Hopkins (Theatr Clwyd, UK Theatre Award winner 2018), Pericles (Olivier Theatre - National Theatre), Steel (Sheffield Theatres), The Changing Room (Connections Festival - National Theatre) and Scenes from the End of the World (Yard/Central School). Other plays include A Declaration From the People (National Theatre); A Dream, The Sheffield Mysteries, Dickensian, Goodwill to All Men, We’re All in This Together and 20 Tiny Plays About Sheffield (all Sheffield Theatres), Larksong (New Vic, Stoke-on-Trent); Cards on the Table (Royal Exchange Manchester); Tony! The Blair Musical (York Theatre Royal); Sleight & Hand (Edinburgh Fringe/BBC Arts and live-screened into cinemas); Poking the Bear (Theatre503); The Bureau of Lost Things (Theatre503/Rose Bruford); Odd (Perfect Pitch/Royal & Derngate Northampton) and Wolf (National Theatre Studio). She has won awards at the UK Theatre Awards two years in a row, the National Young Playwrights’ Festival, Perfect Pitch, Sunday Times Edinburgh Competition, and a Brit Writers’ Award. Her acclaimed musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge transfers from Sheffield to the National Theatre in 2021.

PARTICIPANTCHRIS BUSHPLAYWRIGHTUNITED KINGDOM

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PARTICIPANTPENDA DIOUFPLAYWRIGHTSENEGAL

Born in Colombia, Violeta Cruz studied at Javeriana University in Bogota, then at the Conservatoire national de musique et de danse de Paris and at the IRCAM in France. In 2016, she is laureate at the Villa Medici: French Academy in Rome. She won prizes such as the National Composition Prize of Colombia - Young Composers and the Francis and Mica Salabert Foundation Prize. She was also finalist in the Contemporary Talents competition of the François Schneider Foundation in 2018.Her work includes instrumental, vocal, electroacoustic pieces and “sound objects”, mechanical machines with partially random rhythmic behavior that provide a visual, scenic or even tactile counterpoint to the abstract world of sounds. Her proposals question the relationships between sound and matter, focusing particularly on elementary matters such as water and light. In her pieces, she brings together concrete and figurative elements of popular culture, with abstract elements of music of written tradition. In 2016, she received a commission from the Accentus Choir to write Pli, a participatory piece for mixed choir and children’s choir, premiered at the Opéra de Rouen. Her opera The Princess Light, commissioned by the Opéra Comique and the IRCAM, staged by Jos Houben and Emily Wilson, was premiered in December 2017 at the Opéra de Lille. In 2019, she collaborated with the ensemble L’instant donné for the recording of her piece Rien n’était encore réel, commissioned by Radio France. Also in 2019, her orchestral piece Stabat Mater Furiosa, based on the homonymous poem by Jean-Pierre Siméon, is created by the Geneva Camerata and Sophie Marceau at the Batîment des Forces Motrices de Genève. Since 2016, she has participated in regional artistic projects in France and Colombia, in particular with the DEMOS project, Batuta foundation, Ars Nova Ensemble and Accentus choir.Her next creations include collaborations with the Musicatreize ensemble in Marseille, Lovemusic in Strasbourg, Almaviva ensemble and La Sirène harmony orchestra in Paris and the Chamber Music Festival of the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany.

PARTICIPANTVIOLETA CRUZCOMPOSERCOLOMBIA

Penda Diouf is a theater author and has directed during 10 years four libraries in Saint-Denis in France. She is also co-founder, with Anthony Thibault, of the label Jeunes Textes en Liberté, an itinerant theater festival which promotes the authors of contemporary theater and tries to fill the gaps in terms of representation and narration. She is an associate artist at the Centre dramatique national de Valence under the direction of Marc Lainé. Her play La Grande Ourse is published by Quartett éditions. Her play Pistes… staged by Aristide Tarnagda will be on tour in 2020-2021 in Germany, in France at CDN de Valence and at MC93 as part of the Festival d’Automne. It will be published on January 2021. She is also president of the association Scènes appartagées which promotes theater readings in a family context. She leads writing workshops too.

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Samantha Fernando (born 1984) is a British composer. Resonance and harmonic colour play a vital role in her music. This preoccupation yields pieces with an intensely colourful and often meditative quality. Other art-forms are a constant source of inspiration which have prompted collaborations with writers, directors, choreographers and performers. She has worked with numerous ensembles including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Riot Ensemble, the choir of Selwyn College Cambridge, LOD Muziektheater (Ghent), Silbersee Vocal Ensemble (Amsterdam) and The London Sinfonietta. Her music has been performed at festivals such as Aldeburgh Music, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Sounds New, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, York Late Music, Lake District Summer Music and The Oxford Lieder Festival. In 2013, she was awarded an RPS Composition Prize and was commissioned to write a new work for the Philharmonia Orchestra as part of the Music of Today series. Her music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and her flute piece Kinesphere was released on NMC. Last year she was commissioned to write a new work celebrating the 50th birthday of the London Sinfonietta, premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in January 2018 and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. In June 2018, her music was showcased in a portrait concert at Kettle’s Yard Cambridge. In 2019, her work Formations was choreographed by Kristen McNally and performed by the Royal Ballet in a showcase of new dance at the Linbury Theatre, ROH. Breathing Space for symphony orchestra was premiered by the Philharmonia Orchestra in Spring 2019 conducted by Martyn Brabbins. Upcoming commissions for 2020 include a new hyper VR opera directed by Netia Jones, designed by Jo Scotcher and produced by the Royal Opera House and Figment Productions.

www.samanthafernando.com

PARTICIPANTSAMANTHA FERNANDOCOMPOSERUNITED KINGDOM

Born in 1983 in Paiporta (Valencia-Spain), Beatriz Fernández Aucejo studied clarinet at the Superior Music Conservatory “Joaquín Rodrigo” in Valencia (Spain) and graduated a Bachelor of Music Education from the University “Ausiàs March” of Valencia (Spain). She also studied piano at the Professional Music Conservatory in Torrent (Spain) and graduated in Wind Orchestral Conducting from the Royal School of Music of London (LRSM) and in Orchestral Conducting for the Superior Music Conservatory “Manuel Masotti Little” in Murcia (Spain). She studied with teachers such as Cristóbal Soler, José Miguel Rodilla, Ferrer Ferran, Ernesto Izquierdo, Manuel Galduf, Jose Maria Cervera Collado, Bruno Aprea, Peter Gülke, YaronTraub, Joshard Daus, George Pehlivanian, Rodolfo Saglimbeni and Michael Tabachnick at the Chigiana Academy (Siena) and she is currently studying with Arturo Tamayo at the Conservatoire della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano (Switzerland). She obtained the awards of four “Honorable Mentions” in the different competitions in which he has participated. She received several awards for her professionalism such as the Isabel Ferrer Prize of the Generalitat Valenciana, One of First Award for the Failure Federation of the City of Valencia or the Equality Award for the newspaper Here of the Region of L’Horta Sud.She has directed several national and international orchestras, such as Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein, Orquesta de la Comunidad Valenciana, Orquesta de Valencia, Orquesta Simfònica de Barcelona I Nacional de Catalunya OBC, Orquesta Sinfónica Región de Murcia ÖSRM, Mendelssohn Symphonia Orchestra and EuropaChorAkademie, Orquesta del Festival Internacional de Música de Cancún, Orquesta Sinfónica Juventudes Musicales de Calahorra, Orchestra del Conservatorio Cherubini di Firenze, Orquesta de la FSMCV, Joven Orquesta de la Generalitat Valenciana, Joven Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Orquesta del Conservatorio Superior “Massotti Littel” de Murcia. She has been assistant conductor with the teachers Cristóbal Soler and Manuel Galduf in the Young Orchestra of the FSMCV, Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Valencia and Jove Orchestra of the Generalitat Valenciana respectively, as well as has been the chief conductor of the Orchestra of the Musical Union of Llíria and Ateneo Musical del Puerto Orchestra of Valencia where she holds the position of Director of Honor. Within her professional career she has been invited to conduct symphonic groups such as Republic Korean Navy Band, Municipal Symphonic Band of Madrid, Municipal Band of Barcelona, Municipal de Santiago de Compostela and Municipal Band of Palma de Mallorca among others. She has been the Chief conductor of the Musical Society La Lira de Vilafamés (Castellón), Allegro Cultural Association of Valencia, Musical Society «L’Artesana» of Catarroja and Unión Musical de Carlet. She was appointed as a member of the jury in different editions of the Provincial Contests of Music Bands of Valencia, Alicante and Castellón, Contest of the Valencian Community, National Contest of Catarroja, National Contest of Colombia-Paipa, Contest of Orchestras of Bankia de the Valencian Community, International Festival of Jeju (South Korea) among others. She is currently the chief conductor of «Lira Castellonera» wind band as well as chief conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Valencia.

www.beatrizfernandezaucejo.com

PARTICIPANTBEATRIZ FERNÁNDEZ AUCEJOCONDUCTORSPAIN

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Stacy Hardy is a writer, an editor and a teacher. Her writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Chimurenga, Ctheory, Bengal Lights, Evergreen Review, Drunken Boat, Joyland, Black Sun Lit and New Orleans Review. A collection of her short fiction, Because the Night, was published in 2015. She regularly collaborates with Angolan composer Victor Gama on multimedia works that have been performed in Chicago, Berlin, Lisbon, Luanda, Cape Town, amongst other places and her experimental performance piece, Museum of Lungs, created together with Laila Soliman, Neo Muyanga and Nancy Mounir, premiered in Johannesburg (2018), followed by dates in Europe. She is currently working on a research-and-performance-based collaborative endeavor with anthropologist Kaushik Sunder Rajan and musician Neo Muyanga exploring biographies and geographies of breath, through a focus on the colonial histories and postcolonial politics, as well as a libretto for a new opera with composer Bushra El-Turk and director Laila Soliman.

PARTICIPANTSTACY HARDYPLAYWRIGHTSOUTH AFRICA

Anna Himali Howard is a stage director and theatremaker. She was associate director on Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Drywrite/Soho Theatre international tour) and assistant director on Othello, staged by Ellen McDougall (Shakespeare’s Globe) and In the Night Time (Before the Sun Rises) by Nina Segal, staged by Ben Kidd (Gate Theatre). She was Paines Plough’s trainee director in 2016 and is an alumnus of the Birmingham REP Foundry. She was recently a staff director at the National Theatre, London. As a director, her work includes I Wanna Be Yours by Zia Ahmed (Paines Plough/Bush Theatre), A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid (Gate Theatre), Albatross by Isley Lynn for NEW (RWCMD/Paines Plough/Gate Theatre). As a theatremaker, her work includes Jane Anger (Yard Theatre Live Drafts), mahabharat/a by her and Zarina Muhammad (Camden People’s Theatre), The Beanfield by Breach Theatre (New Diorama, National tour 2016).

PARTICIPANTANNA HIMALI HOWARDSTAGE DIRECTORUNITED KINGDOM

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Daniela Kerck studied stage design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the master class of Erich Wonder. Already at that time she was awarded various prizes including the Meisterschulpreis of the Academy of Fine Arts. Between 2014 and 2016, she studied opera direction at the University of Music in Karlsruhe in Germany by Andrea Raabe and Stephan Moesch, where she attended masterclasses in opera directing by Peter Konwitschny and Tatjana Gürbaca. Her university studies were followed by assistance periods for Erich Wonder at the Opernhaus Zurich, at the San Francisco Opera, at the state opera Berlin and Munich as well as the Teatro della Scala in Milan by directors Luc Bondy, Johannes Schaaf and Peter Mussbach. Since 2004, she has been working as a freelance stage designer at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (Norma), at the Teatro Zarzuela Madrid (Neither), at the Theatre St Gallen (Hedda Gabler) and at the Latvijas Opera in Riga (Rusalka) and many others. In 2019, she directed and designed the opera Aida at the Tiroler Festival in Erl. For the season 2020/21 she is preparing the opera Babylon by Jörg Widmann at the Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden. She teaches as Senior Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the class of Prof. Anna Viebrock.

www.danielakerck.com

PARTICIPANTDANIELA KERCKSTAGE DIRECTORGERMANY

Carmen C. Kruse is an Austrian German freelance opera director and new works collaborator. In her immersive and devised work, she focuses on creating places of encounters. She enjoys leaving conventional spaces and working with living composers to explore new topics, regions and their people. She studied music and media management with a focus on “opera and innovation” in Munich and San Diego. From 2016 to 2019, she assisted directors such as Jossi Wieler, David Alden, Vera Nemirova, Krzysztof Warlikowski and Alex Ollé at the Salzburg Easter Festival, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatstheater Mainz and Staatsoper Stuttgart while continuing to develop and direct her own productions. After co-directing Händel’s Rodelinda and Mozart’s Così fan tutte, she directed Cavalli’s L’Egisto at the Halifax Summer Opera Festival 2017. Two devised pieces followed shortly: Ein Käfig voller Diven at Staatstheater Mainz and SDDS: Defiance with an amateur choir of sixty at Staatsoper Stuttgart. In 2018, she won the directing competition of the Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Deutsche Bank Stiftung and was invited to the 2018 Directors Lab at Lincoln Center Theater, where she directed scenes from A. Washburns I Have Loved Strangers. In 2019, she won the Cross Award in Verbania and directed the world premieres of Victoria Bonds Clara at the Easter Festival Baden-Baden and Thierry Tidrow’s micro-opera A Safe and Special Place at Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt. Together with composer Manuel Zwerger she currently develops a community-based new work at Teatro Maggiore, premiering in May 2020. She holds a Directing Scholarship from the Akademie Musiktheater Heute of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung (2017-2019).

www.cckruse.com

PARTICIPANTCARMEN C. KRUSESTAGE DIRECTORAUSTRIA

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Patricia Martinez is an Argentinian-Spanish composer, interdisciplinary artist and performer based in Buenos Aires. Her creative and research interests are focused on new music composition and interdisciplinary projects, specially contemporary music theatre, new opera, extended music composition and performance, a sensible use of technology (electroacoustic and video art), improvisation and choreography-composition. She studied at the Municipal Conservatory of Buenos Aires, the National University of Quilmes and IRCAM. She holds a doctoral and a master degree in Music Composition from Stanford University, where Brian Ferneyhough was her advisor. She has received multiple prizes and accolades and her works have been performed by renowned ensembles all around North and South America as well as Europe. Recently highlights include the premiere of interdisciplinary diptych Short sleep (Breve sueño), commissioned and produced at the Experimental Center of Colón Theater with four sold out performances; the premier of Beyond at the Place of Fine Arts in Mexico by Iber-dance/Music; The Frozen Little Girl (La niña helada), a chamber opera commissioned and premiered during the 48th Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt and selected to be fully produced at the Recoleta Cultural Center in the 2017 season and then at the International New Opera Festival of Buenos Aires; Espacio ausente for 14 speakers, lights and voice commissioned by Cervantes National Theatre. Last season her micro-opera 2001 (prizewinner of the International Stanisław Moniuszko Composers’ Competition) was staged at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw. Since 1990 she was artistic director, founder member and performer of different new music and experimental ensembles in Buenos Aires, Paris and Virginia. She is currently a professor of Composition at National University of Quilmes, at the Superior Conservatory of Music of Buenos Aires City as well as an external tutor at the Doctoral program in Music Composition at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her works were published by Melos Editions, Babel Scores, Casa de las Américas, Innova, Wergo, 80 Mundos, CICTeM and Ein Klan Records. She is the Artistic Director and Founder of Compañía Helada (Frozen Company).

www.patriciamartinez.com.ar

PARTICIPANTPATRICIA MARTINEZCOMPOSERARGENTINA / SPAIN

Born in Australia, Natalie Murray Beale currently lives in the United Kingdom. She trained at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and furthered her studies at the National Opera Studio (London) and with Jorma Panula. A versatile conductor, she moves fluidly between opera, concerts, film and video game recordings. As Guest Conductor, she has directed the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Malta Philharmonic, the Britten Sinfonia, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa, the Presidential Orchestra of Turkey, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Chamber Orchestra of London. She has also worked with the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Royal Swedish Opera and Bergen Philharmonic. She has conducted operas for Theater Bonn, the Croatian National Theatre, the Royal Opera House, Mumbai, Opera Holland Park, the Royal College of Music, contemporary opera group Tête-â-tête, Opera Queensland, award-winning physical theatre company Circa and Spitalfields Music Festival. In 2019, her performances of A Flowering Tree by John Adams made Limelight Magazine’s Best Opera list, she curated and presented the programme ‘Inside Music’ for BBC Radio 3 and also featured on Classic FM’s Full Works Concert Series, live from the Barbican, conducting a world premiere by Joby Talbot. Further achievements include a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for her performances of the new opera We Are Shadows and a BAFTA nomination, music category, for the video game score Alien:Isolation. She was a BBC Performing Arts Fellow in 2015 and was selected the same year by the Dallas Opera for the inaugural Institute for Women Conductors. Her 2019/2020 season featured engagements with Symphony Nova Scotia, Royal Academy Opera, Ulster Orchestra, Ensemble Contrechamps and Orchestre de chambre de Genève. She has assisted world-leading conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ingo Metzmacher and Jérémie Rhorer. She was Assistant Conductor at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence for four seasons (Mahagonny, Oedipus Rex, Symphony of Psalms, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro) and for the Opéra national de Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysees and the Wiener Festwochen. As a chorus director, she has also collaborated with Valery Gergiev, Sir Colin Davis, Marin Alsop, Daniele Gatti and the London Symphony Chorus. She is a professor at the Royal College of Music (London) and Creative Director of Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells, where she is committed to supporting emerging opera artists, developing new productions and commissioning composers.

www.murraybeale.com

PARTICIPANTNATALIE MURRAY BEALECONDUCTORAUSTRALIA

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Silvina Peruglia completed her Master in Orchestral Conducting at the Haute École de Musique de Genève with Laurent Gay. Previously, she studied at the National University of Arts in Buenos Aires. She has recently been selected as one of the twenty finalists for the 56th Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors. She participated in Masterclasses with conductors Marin Alsop, Sian Edwards, Eiji Owe, Johannes Schlaefli, Jaap Van Zweeden and Julien Salemkour among others. She has been the recipient of the “Bourse d’excellence” of the HEM- Fondation Wilsdorf, the Gertrud Rüegg Stiftung Stipendium and the Mozarteum Argentino Scholarship among others.In 2018, she is invited by Eufonia Bordeaux to conduct the Paukenmesse by Haydn with musicians of l’Orchestre national Bordeaux Aquitaine at the Bordeaux Cathedral. As for her operatic experience, since 2012, she assumed the music direction of different opera projects, such as Die Fledermaus (2017), Così fan tutte (2016), F. Moreno’s Luisa Fernanda (2015), Don Giovanni (2014), G. Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (2012). As assistant conductor, she has the opportunity to work in several opera productions, such as Das Reihngold and Die Walküre in 2018 at the Grand Théâtre de Genève assisting Georg Fritzsch. In 2015, she assisted Antonio Pappano with the Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecila at Teatro Colón. She also worked as assistant conductor in the Opera production of La Rosa by Martín Matalón and at Teatro Avenida as assistant of Carlos Vieu in the 2012 Rigoletto production. She has performed with a wide breadth of orchestras, including the Orchestre de chambre de Genève, the Gstaad Conducting Academy Orchestra of the Yehudi Menuhin Festival, the Orchestre régional de Normandie, the Pazardzhik Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Santa Fe (Argentina), the Orquesta Sinfónica de Entre Ríos and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de Sao Paulo (Brasil) among others.

www.silvinaperuglia.com

PARTICIPANTSILVINA PERUGLIACONDUCTORARGENTINA / SPAIN

Helena Röhr has been working actively in the opera in Sweden since 1995, first as assistant director in numerous productions all over Sweden. Since 2005, she is a full time director, the first many years only directing opera and musical, with productions at Malmö Opera, Norrlandsoperan, Vadstena Akademien and Vietnam National Opera amongst others. Since 2012, she has worked within theatre and music theatre as a playwright, dramaturge and director at theaters as Malmö Stadsteater, Norrbottensteatern, Teater InSite, Moomsteatern, Månteatern amongst others. The last few years, she has developed and directed more than five newly composed chamber operas in Sweden with composers as Christofer Elgh, Daniel Hjorth, Marie Samuelsson and Stefan Klaverdal. To tell new stories on stage is an important and essential part of her creativity. She is also a singer and with that comes a deep understanding for the work of the singer.

www.helenarohr.com

PARTICIPANTHELENA RÖHRSTAGE DIRECTORSWEDEN

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CRÉDITS PHOTOSKatie Mitchell © Stephen Cummiskey Beatriz Aucejo Fernández © Michal Novak Carmen C. Kruse © C. VladarPatricia Martinez © Barbara ScottoNatalie Beale Murray © Chris Gloag

Création graphique – Irma BoomExécution graphique – Laurie Wagner

Sita Thomas is a United Kingdom-based director and is a member of Jette Parker’s directors programme at the Covent Garden. She is a creative associate at the Watford Palace Theatre, has worked as associate director for Out of Joint, Kali and National Youth Theatre and was trainee artistic director at the Bush Theatre. She holds a PhD examining culturally diverse Shakespearean performance (University of Warwick) and a Masters in movement direction (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) both funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council. She runs Tamasha’s directors programme and recently directed a site-specific audio drama We Are Shadows: Brick Lane for the company. She has received funding from Arts Council of Wales, MGCfutures, National Theatre Wales and Jerwood Bursaries for the development of her latest production Queer Tales, a verbatim inspired LGBT+ play with music. She was assistant director to Jude Kelly on Bernstein’s Mass at the Royal Festival Hall conducted by Marin Alsop. She was staff director at the National Theatre and has assisted at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Royal Court and Southbank Centre. She also works as a movement director, film maker and presenter of Channel 5’s milkshake!.

PARTICIPANTSITA THOMASSTAGE DIRECTORUNITED KINGDOM

THE ACADÉMIE DU FESTIVAL IS SUPPORTED BY:SINCE ITS CREATION IN 1998, THE ACADÉMIE HAS ESTABLISHED ITSELF AS A CENTRE FOR VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL EXCELLENCE, A PLACE TO REFLECT ON OPERA CREATION TODAY AND TO EXPERIMENT WITH NEW INNOVATIVE FORMATS, WHILE ALSO SERVING AS A SPACE THAT PROMOTES AND AIDS THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG ARTISTS.

AMMODO

Ammodo initiates, develops and supports projects in the visual arts, performing arts and sciences. Artists and scientists often see things before other people do. They identify social trends, extend boundaries and make revolutionary discoveries. By providing artists and scientists with the space and time to really immerse themselves in their work, and by helping to showcase that work, Ammodo seeks to stimulate the development of the arts and sciences. Ammodo supports the realisation of the new opera Innocence and the Opera de-ci de-là residency.

THE ACADEMIE IS A FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE NETWORK SUPPORTED BY

TOTAL FOUNDATION

Total Foundation actively leads and participates in actions of solidarity throughout the world on a daily basis through its sites, its subsidiaries and its corporate foundation which stems from Total Group. With its solidarity program, Total is committed to contributing to the development of the zones where it is present. While focusing on youth, Total’s actions can be seen in four different areas including road safety, forest and climate action, education and the professional integration of young people, and dialogue around the subject of culture and heritage.Within the context of this fourth objective, Total Foundation supports artistic projects that promote social inclusion, empower youth, and bring vitality to the regions where Total Group is present. The Opéra de-ci de-là residency proposed by the Académie du Festival d’Aix is a project that brings together all these objectives. Total Foundation provided support and accompanied the Académie during this first session whose aim was to help young artists create participatory forms of opera. Sharing these newly elaborated and condensed forms of opera which were created during the residency with audiences in Aix-en-Provence free of charge adds a dynamic element to the daily life of the city. The operas were performed in public spaces and showcase heritaged that can sometimes be overlooked, the everyday life of the residents of Aix.