Team
Fay Jennett, Executive Director
Fay is a strategic inclusion consultant, and creative producer of new opera and music-theatre with a specialism in artist development.
Across her career she has led transformative projects that champion equity, innovation, sustainable career pathways and working conditions for everyone in the arts. Working with organisations across the UK and internationally – including Britten Pears Arts, Tonic, European Network of Opera Academies, Royal Ballet and Opera, and Festival d’Aix-En-Provence – Fay spearheads strategic inclusion initiatives, embedding systemic change in artistic institutions. She supports organisations to develop inclusive policies, embed equitable recruitment frameworks, and sector-wide training on topics like creating inclusive environments and developing our understanding of unconscious bias. She has also developed a strand of training on race and allyship. Fay co-created Tonic’s Changemakers programme, a programme developed specifically for to support individuals making change with a focus on inclusion in their institutions. Passionate about the potential of new work and giving it the time and space to develop while enabling artists to thrive, Fay produces projects that challenge traditional storytelling models and the status quo of opera making. She brings extensive expertise in artist development, sector engagement and thoughtful and considered decision-making.
Jude Christian, Artistic Director
Jude is a writer, director, dramaturg, facilitator and mentor working in theatre, opera and interdisciplinary live performance. She has directed world premieres at the Royal Court Theatre, Aldeburgh Festival, Soho Theatre, The Gate, The Bush, Manchester Royal Exchange, Liverpool Everyman, Northampton Royal & Derngate, Shakespeare's Globe and Copenhagen Opera Festival, written new works and adaptations for the National Theatre, Unicorn Theatre, Polka Theatre, the Lyric Hammersmith, Brageteatret Drammen, The Yard, Yomiuri Otemachi Hall Tokyo, BFI Shorts, and the Stückemarkt at Theatertreffen Berlin, and acted as dramaturg on new work at Factory International, the Royal Opera House, HOME Manchester and Transform Festival. Jude has a holistic, iconoclastic and political approach to making art, and a strong belief in collaboration, mentoring and allyship. She was recently awarded a Rotary Peace Fellowship at the University of Queensland, through which she will bring performing arts practice to an international network of peace workers of all disciplines.
Trustees
Our board of Trustees is led by Alan Williams, professor of collaborative composition at the University of Salford and a practitioner of community-engaged new music-making across the North of England. Other board members – George Johnson Leigh, John Savournin, Emily Simpson, and Heather Watson – between them bring expertise in accountancy, production management, audience development and community engagement. We are currently recruiting additional Trustees: find more information about the role and how to apply here.