CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Martin Barker is Emeritus Professor at Aberystwyth University.  Following a varied research career (covering contemporary racism, comicbooks, and moral controversies over the media, he has in recent years worked mainly in the fields of film and cinema studies.  After a long series of studies of film audiences (including leading the 2003 international project to study audiences for The Lord of the Rings), he became interested in the changes to cinema brought about by the arrival of ‘livecasting’: the simultaneous broadcast to cinemas of opera, theatre, ballet and the like.  In 2009 he worked with Picturehouse Cinemas to conduct a study of the audiences for these events, and is currently involved in a major research bid to study the possible futures for digital cinema.

David M. Berry is Reader in Media and Communications at the University of Sussex. His books include Critical Theory and the Digital, The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age, Understanding Digital Humanities, and forthcoming Postdigital Aesthetics in 2015.

Andy Doe is one of the pioneers of the digital classical revolution. He was head of classical music at iTunes as it grew from an experimental project to become the world’s largest retailer of recorded music. As COO of the Naxos group, he oversaw the launch of the company’s first digital books and apps, and the addition of major label catalogues to the Naxos Music Library. In the first ten years of his career, he sold more half a billion dollars worth of classical music through outlets that did not exist when he was a student. In 2010 he founded Proper Discord Ltd, providing media strategy consulting and related services to a diverse range of clients including Sirius XM Radio, Marin Alsop, the Berliner Philharmoniker, Kronos Quartet and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge where he holds the post of Director of Recordings and Media.

Evelyn Ficarra (University of Sussex) is a composer and sound artist, working across a range of genres including music theatre, dance theatre, multi-media, film, installation and the concert hall. She is currently Lecturer in Music Theatre and Assistant Director of the Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre at the University of Sussex. Her work has received support from, among others, the Arts Council of England, the London Arts Board, the Sonic Arts Network, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, the Hinrichsen Foundation, and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Current projects include Dissonant Futures; a sound/video/performance collaboration with video artist Ian Winters, and composer/pianist Myra Melford. She is particularly pleased to be co-curating CROMT’s web opera commissions. Evelyn holds a doctorate in composition from the University of California, Berkeley.

Tony Followell is Head of Media at the Royal Opera House. The Media department at the Royal Opera House comprises Film & Broadcast, Digital Media and Publications teams and produces the Royal Opera House’s cinema relays, big screen and live stream events, TV and DVD releases, website and social media content and a range of  digital and print publications. Tony provides editorial and managerial leadership to the department and coordinates media activity and digital initiatives across the ROH. Tony was formerly a producer and director of music and events programmes for the BBC.

John Fulljames is Associate Director of Opera for The Royal Opera. He was appointed to the position in 2011. Fulljames co-founded The Opera Group (now Mahogany Opera Group), where he was Artistic Director 1997–2011. He worked closely with a wide range of composers and librettists to develop, commission and produce new operas. His productions for Mahogany Opera Group include Neuwirth’s American Lulu (also Scottish Opera & Bregenz Festival), Bruce’s The Firework Maker’s Daughter (also Opera North, New Victory, New York), Langer’s The Lion’s Face, Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill and Dove’s The Enchanted Pig (also for ROH2, New Victory, New York, and Young Vic). Many of the company’s productions have been performed in the Linbury Studio Theatre.

Other productions include La donna del lago for The Royal Opera, La clemenza di Tito, From the House of the DeadThe Excursions of Mr Brouček and Roméo et Juliette for Opera North, Where the Wild Things Are and Juliette at Theater Bremen, Von Heute auf Morgen and Sancta Susanna for Opéra de Lyon, Gianni Schicchi and Florentinische Tragoedie for Greek National Opera. He has extensive experience of working with communities and young people, and has directed many productions involving large-scale participation, including Tobias and the Angel (Young Vic) and Knight Crew (Glyndebourne). His production of Weill’s Street Scene for the Young Vic won Best Musical at the Evening Standard Awards and was performed at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, and the Liceu, Barcelona.

John Holmes is Head of Marketing at English Touring Opera, overseeing the company’s marketing campaigns, press, social media and market research. He has been with the company since 2011, having previously worked at one of its key venues, Exeter Northcott Theatre. Recently, he has led ETO’s involvement in pioneering Creativeworks London research into the audience for opera in cinemas, in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama

John does not have an operatic background, but has worked as regional theatre editor for the free newspaper Metro, the Cornwall Voluntary Sector Forum, as well as leading a workshop programme on the craft of theatre writing at Hall for Cornwall. He also spent a year in Canada, doing fundraising telesales for the National Arts Centre and writing about theatre, cricket and public transport policy.

Professor Andrew Hugill is a composer, musicologist, literary scholar and computer scientist. His recent compositions include: Land of Lace, commissioned by Mahogany Opera Group, viewable at www.theimaginaryvoyage.com; and the installation Secret Garden, an 11-iPad opera/ballet created with Martin Rieser, which was experienced by more than 36,000 people during its recent exhibition in the Musuem of Contemporary Art, Taipei. His recent books include The Digital Musician (Routledge 2012) and ‘Pataphysics: A Useless Guide (MIT Press, 2012). He is the Director of the Centre for Creative Computing at Bath Spa University and an Associate Fellow of the Université de Paris-Sorbonne.

Miika Hyytiäinen is a young Finnish composer. His pieces combine different kinds of art forms, especially performance and theatre. Also the versatile use of human voice and intimacy of the sound is typical for his music. Hyyiäinen works in the tradition of the German experimental music theatre and he has also studied with Daniel Ott at the UdK Berlin. At the moment Hyytiäinen is preparing in his PhD about the communication between singer and composer in the Sibelius Academy, Finland.

Some of his most important performances include “Omnivore” for mobile phone, international premiere, 2012; chamber opera “Figure de la Terre”, 2013 in Sophiensaele, Berlin; music theatre piece “Pierrot Lunaire und drei Schattenträume” performed in two seasons in Finland with positive reviews and as part of Tokyo Wonder Site Experimental Festival vol 8 in 2013 and an experimental music theatre piece “Aikainen”, 2014 in Berlin and in Grimeborn Festival in London, 2014.

Emma Keith is a Producer of National Theatre Live where she oversees the ground-breaking initiative to broadcast plays live from the National Theatre to cinemas worldwide, leading on the strategic and operational requirements of the broadcasts. The programme was launched in June 2009 and has reached a global audience of more than 2.5 million people in over 35 countries. Most recently Emma has led on the world’s first live broadcast of a theatre production in 4K (Ultra HD) to cinemas, pushing the technological boundaries of live broadcast.

National Theatre Live forms part of the NT’s Broadcast & Digital department which are also responsible for producing digital content covering all aspects of producing theatre and the craft of theatre-making, website development and digital engagement.

Having trained in Dance Emma worked at Arts Council England and in Government Relations at the UK Film Council before returning to education and completing a Masters Degree in Digital Culture and Technology at Kings College London.

Vicky Kington is Glyndebourne’s Media Manager and works closely with a range of UK and international media, establishing partnerships and initiatives that draw new audiences to Glyndebourne, securing mainstream awareness of its niche brand and product. Previously Vicky has established and delivered diverse UK campaigns including the London 2012 Olympics, the UK’s mental health campaign, Time to Change, and a number of national environmental campaigns. At Glyndebourne Vicky has established several media partnerships to further the Glyndebourne brand and draw audiences to cinema screenings, as well as working closely with the Telegraph Media Group to reach new audiences through Glyndebourne’s free, online opera streaming. Vicky works closely with her colleagues on integrated communications campaigns that incorporate marketing, digital and brand.

Mary Agnes Krell (University of Sussex) has worked widely in theatre and as a digital artist (creating interactive media for the web, CD-ROM and installations) in the UK and internationally for over fifteen years. She has also been an associate member of Forced Entertainment as a digital author and, with them, created a number of interactive works that have been exhibited around the world at venues including the ZKM (in Karlsruhe, Germany), the ICA (in London) and The Art Institute of Chicago. Nightwalks, an interactive virtual reality piece created in collaboration with the company won the Transmediale in 2000. Mary’s current research is concerned with the way that community-led groups are using digital media to perform, record and share narratives about their built environment & lived experience.

Christopher Morris is Professor of Music and Head of Music Department at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. He has published widely on opera, film music and media technology, including Reading Opera Between the Lines: Orchestral Interludes and Cultural Meaning from Wagner to Berg (Cambridge UP, 2002) and Modernism and the Cult of Mountains: Music, Opera, Cinema (Ashgate, 2012). His recent research, focused on the mediatisation of opera, will form the basis of a book provisionally entitled Digital Diva: Opera On Video. Christopher is Associate Editor of The Opera Quarterly.

Sally Jane Norman (University of Sussex) is Professor of Performance Technologies, cultural theorist and practitioner; dual citizen (Aotearoa – New Zealand/ France), Docteur d’Etat (Université de Paris III). Director of the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts at the University of Sussex since 2010, Sally Jane  will serve as co-founder of the emerging Sussex Humanities Lab from 2015. She was previously founding director of Culture Lab at Newcastle University, Director General of the Ecole européenne supérieure de l’image (Angoulême/ Poitiers), and EU Framework project researcher at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe). Sally Jane teaches on the Sussex Music MA and supervises a cohort of interdisciplinary PhD students. Co-organiser of STEIM’s Touch Festival as artistic co-director (1998-2000), she has collaborated since 2005 on “Music and Machines” events with Bennett Hogg (Newcastle), with whom she co-edited an issue of the Contemporary Music Review in 2013. She is currently preparing a monograph on theatre.

Jaakko Nousiainen (born 1969 in Lapland, Finland) is a creative professional with a multidisciplinary background in film, sound art, performance art, contemporary opera and music theatre. In recent years he has mainly worked as stage director, writer and researcher. At the moment he is developing new film and opera productions, as well as working on the finishing stages of a practice-based PhD on the topic of digital opera and mobile media for the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. www.jaakkonousiainen.net

Jørn Pedersen started his career as a freelance classical trumpeter with a Bachelor of Music from The Norwegian Academy of Music. However, not before long he discovered the exiting world of music recording and soon became one of Norway’s leading classical recording producers. In 1996 he was asked to join EMI Abbey Road Studios in London, and for the following nine years he produced and edited numerous CDs with internationally renowned musicians, orchestras and singers. He has won several Gramophone awards and Norwegian Grammys for his work. After returning to Norway in 2005 he continued his work as a sought after recording producer both nationally and in Europe.

Since December 2009 he holds the position as Orchestra Director/ Deputy Music Director at the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet with the responsibility for the running and development of the orchestra, as well as co-leading the music department as Deputy Music Director alongside Music Director John Fiore. In the past few years he also has played a central role in DNO&B’s cinema and TV-productions as project coordinator and music producer.

Andrew Pettie is the Head of Arts & Entertainment at the Telegraph Media Group. He oversees the Telegraph’s arts coverage online, in the Review supplement on Saturdays, Seven magazine on Sundays and the daily Arts and TV & Radio sections. He has previously worked as a writer and editor for the BBC and Encyclopaedia Britannica. He is closely involved with the Telegraph’s ongoing partnership with Glyndebourne, which saw three Glyndebourne productions, Der Rosenkavalier, Don Giovanni and La Traviata streamed for free on the Telegraph website this summer.

Mark Ralphs is managing director of insight and digital stratefy agency Bloom Worldwide. Mark is a communications strategist with over fifteen years’ experience of digital and social media, working with brands and organisations including the BBC, Channel 4, the British Library, GlaxoSmithKline and Toyota.

Áine Sheil is a Lecturer in Music at the University of York, where she teaches courses on opera and performance studies, and co-organized the conference Digital opera: new means and new meanings in May 2011. Together with Craig Vear (De Montfort University), she guest edited a special issue of the International Journal of Performing Arts & Digital Media on digital opera (2012). Her publications include articles, chapters and reviews on contemporary opera production, historical opera reception and opera-related arts policy. She previously worked in the Publications Department of the Royal Opera House, London, and in the Department of Drama at Trinity College Dublin as a postdoctoral research fellow.

Robert Thomas is an adaptive music composer and sound designer with a technical focus. His work explores ways music can react and adapt itself in realtime to the listeners behaviour, mood or situation, often for functional purposes. He is currently working on a range of projects including music for exercise which changes with your heart rate / movement and adaptive music for meditation using brainwave sensors. Robert also recently created a 3d ambisonic soundscape for Arboreal Lightning, a huge interactive light installation at the heart of Imogen Heaps Reverb 2014 festival at the Roundhouse London.

From 2009 to April 2014 Robert was Chief Creative Officer at RjDj where was a part of the team that created Inception the App which was no1 in the App Store. Robert has worked with Imogen Heap, Hans Zimmer, Air, Carl Craig, Jimmy Edgar, Bookashade, Console, Little Boots, Chiddy Bang, Kirsty Hawkshaw and Sophie Barker.

Nicholas Till is Professor of Opera and Music Theatre at University of Sussex.  Before becoming an academic he worked extensively as an opera director and community arts practitioner, and in 1986 mounted the first community opera project in the UK. He has worked as a writer and director of new works for the Royal Opera Garden Venture, ENO Studio, Stuttgart Opera, etc, and has worked in experimental music theatre as co-director of Post-Operative Productions, with whom has made new work in a range of media in the UK, France and Germany.  He has also written extensively about contemporary opera and music theatre, and the implications of new media and technologies for the forms of opera. He is the author of Mozart and the Enlightenment (1992), a study of the operas of Mozart, and editor of the Cambridge Companion to Opera Studies (2012).

Dr. Craig Vear is Reader in Performing Arts specialising in music and digital arts within the School of Art. He is an internationally recognised composer working within performance and technology. He is Head of the Performance Research Group, a founding member of DORG: Digital Opera Research Group, and full member of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre. He won an Olivier award in 2012, went to Antarctica as composer-in-residence with the British Antarctic Survey (2003-4), and sold over 350,000 albums with his band Cousteau.

Dr. Karen Wise is Research Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and is a psychologist, teacher and classical mezzo soprano. Her main research interests concern 1) singing and vocal development, particularly in untrained and ‘non-singing’ adults and 2) the psychology of performance, from practising and creativity to audience-performer relationships. From 2010 to 2013 she was a Research Associate in the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP), at the Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge. Prior to that she was a Teaching Fellow in Psychology at Keele University, where was awarded a PhD in Psychology for her work in understanding ‘tone deafness’. She studied music at the University of York, and subsequently trained at the Royal Northern College of Music, winning the Brigitte Fassbaender Award for Lieder. She continues to perform as a soloist in oratorio, opera and concerts. Karen is also an Academic Tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music.