People

Terje J Tveit is a Norwegian-Danish-British theatre director and writer. He trained at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, Honours; holds an MA in Comparative Literature (Litteraturvitenskap) from the University of Copenhagen and a BA in Theatre Studies (Teatervitenskap) from the University of Bergen, with additional studies in Latin and Classical Greek, University of Copenhagen. He has been the artistic director of the Ibsen Stage Company since its formation in 2000. Terje J Tveit's passion for the works of Henrik Ibsen is rooted in his trust in the material’s psychological mechanics, which he believes are not served adequately by naturalistic theatre and a set period format. Terje J Tveit's work on Ibsen for Ibsen Stage Company seeks to explore alternative means of expression that paves the way for engaging and exciting theatre. He is currently developing the project Natter-Gal based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Nightingale together with composer Kaja Bjørntvedt. This autumn he is directing Ibsen Stage Company’s co-production with Larvik Barokk Festival and Early Voices of Notes for a Requiem and Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for Griegakademiet/UiS in Bergen/Stavanger.

Andrew Smith (b. 1970) is a British-Norwegian composer with a growing international reputation for choral and vocal music that links tradition with a contemporary idiom. Andrew read music and English at the University of Oslo. His composing, a hobby since the age of eight, began in earnest in the late 1990s when he wrote a piece for the newly-formed Trio Mediaeval (Norway). The subsequent recording of this and other music for the Trio brought Andrew to the attention of the American audience and led the way to collaborations with groups such as New York Polyphony and Gothic Voices. Andrew’s Requiem, composed for the Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir in response to the tragic events in Norway in July 2011, premiered in Trondheim in 2012. The work is featured on the Nidaros Cathedral Girls Choir album LUX, which was awarded a Grammy for Best Immersive Audio Album in January 2020. Andrew has been commissioned and performed by numerous choirs in Norway and abroad. Recent commissions include Lukaspasjon, a setting in Norwegian of the Passion according to St. Luke for Oslo Cathedral Choir, and O Antiphons for the Khorikos chamber choir in New York, premiered in December 2019. Andrew’s musical style is best summed up in the words of Alexandra Coghlan: “… Smith’s compositions incorporate medieval textures and chant, which are reflected and inflected through [his] own contemporary idiom, blurring the modal clarity of plainchant with vivid cluster-chords and dissenting moments of chromatic or dissonant color. The effect is at once familiar and unsettling in its strangeness – a distorted and original viewpoint on the past."

Bjørn Morten is a celebrated Norwegian composer, who has been nominated for both Spellemannsprisen (Norwegian Grammy) and has received the TONO Composer' Award. Bjørn Morten Christophersen (1976-) has a PhD degree in musicology from the University of Oslo and MA in Composing for Film and TV from Kingston University in London. He has written choral, orchestral and chamber music on commission from Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, The Royal Norwegian Navy Band, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, musicians from the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Norwegian chamber choir Schola Cantorum and several other ensembles. He has also composed the music for several large scaled TV dramas for the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK), as well as for the stage. He has written more than 100 orchestral arrangements for Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra and The Norwegian Wind Ensemble. In 2017 2L released a full album called Woven Brass with his brass music recorded by Oslo Philharmonic Brass. In 2009 Schola Cantorum and 2L released the album Audiens with most of his choral music. His music has been performed in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and USA. Christophersen holds the post as lecturer at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo where he has taught arranging and composition since 2003. In 2016 he defended his PhD thesis entitled Panoramic Constraints: A Study of Johan Svendsen’s Musical Sketches and Exercises.

Christopher Bucknall is a rising star both on the concert platform and in the opera house, sharing his passion for bringing music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries alive. He made his conducting debut in 2012 with Händel, Apollo e Dafne at the Wigmore Hall and has since gone on to conduct critically acclaimed productions of Händel, Alcina (Den Norske Opera); Händel, Agrippina, Partenope and Jeptha (Iford Arts); Haydn, Il Mondo della Luna (English Touring Opera); Monteverdi, L'Orfeo (Silent Opera); Mozart, Die Zauberflöte (Birmingham Conservatoire); and Cavalli, La Calisto (Theater Aachen). On the concert platform, Christopher Bucknall has appeared directing The English Concert, B’Rock (Belgian Baroque Orchestra Ghent), Instruments of Time and Truth, (City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong), Real Filharmonie de Galicia and the Norwegian Wind Ensemble in varied repertoire ranging from Monteverdi through to Mozart. He also regularly collaborates with the UK’s finest vocal ensembles including performances of Bach's, Weihnachtsoratorium, with the BBC Singers, and highly praised preparation of the Glyndebourne and English National Opera choruses in works by Purcell and Rameau.

Jack Harris trained at Islington Music Workshop with professional qualifications in sound production, music technology and recording. Additional qualifications include a Diploma in Photography and Multimedia, attained at the School of Visual arts in Exeter. His work consists of both live and studio aspects. He also specialises in building DIY sound systems and creating mixes and ambience to specification.

Kaja Bjørntvedt (born 1981, Tromsø, Norway) is a Norwegian composer with international engagements. She creates electro-acoustic soundscapes for performances within contemporary dance, theatre, art-installations and films, as well as writing acoustic music for various ensembles. She studied at Leeds College of Music (BA Hons in Music/piano), Trinity College of Music (Masters in Composition and LTCL Diploma in Teaching) and the Norwegian Academy of Music (Further Higher Education in Culture and Leadership). Her music is published by Musikk-Husets Forlag and Tetractys Publishing, with music included in the Trinity Guildhall Graded Exams Syllabus.

Markus Kvint graduated as a soloist at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in 2017, where he studied with Friedrich Gürtler, Jens Elvekjær and Niklas Sivelöv. He has also studied at Hochschule für Musik – Franz Liszt in Weimar and at KMH in Stockholm in Anders Kilström's piano class. He is a frequently employed pianist and has appeared as a soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Uppsala Chamber Orchestra in a project that presents Beethoven to younger audiences. He has participated in a number of opera projects and is part of the artistic management group for Opera Warberg. Markus is also employed as a pianist at Lund University at the Palaestra et Odeum, where he regularly performs at guest lectures and concerts. As a solo pianist and chamber musician, he has performed at festivals in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany and Austria, and has toured the USA, Canada and Sweden as an accompanist for the 2015 Jenny Lind scholarship holder, the soprano Sara Swietlicki. In 2019 he was the finalist together with baritone Joakim Larsson, in the Copenhagen lied duo competition. Markus has received several scholarships, among others from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, the Artists' Association and the Anders Sandrews Foundation. On two occasions he has received the Sixten Gemzéu major scholarship for his studies at DKDM. With financial support from the Idella Foundation, he currently develops his solo programs with the pianist Konstantin Bogino in Bergamo, Italy.

Simon Over, MA FRCO attended King Henry VIII School in Coventry, UK. He subsequently studied at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Oxford (Keble College). Simon Over has been Music Director of Southbank Sinfonia since its formation in 2002 and has conducted many of its concerts throughout the UK and Europe. In 2010 he conducted the orchestra in a new production of Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Tom Stoppard/André Previn) at the Royal National Theatre. He is also the artistic director of the Music Festival in Anghiari, Tuscany, where he was recently made an Honorary Citizen. In 2015 he was appointed Director of Music at St Clement Danes, the Central Church of the Royal Air Force, Westminster, London.

Christopher Nairne has more than 15 years’ experience of lighting design for theatre, musicals, opera & dance, extensively around the UK and occasionally internationally. He won the “Best Lighting Designer” Offie award in 2016, for Teddy (Southwark Playhouse), and has been nominated on numerous other occasions. Previous designs for Ibsen Stage Company include Hedda, Peer Gynt Recharged (both Riverside Studios) and Recording Hedda (New Diorama Theatre). Other theatre includes: Mischief Theatre’s Groan Ups (West End & UK tour); Blackout Songs (Hampstead Theatre); Tom Fool and Mayfly (Orange Tree Theatre); Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense and The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson (UK tours); Suzy Storck (Gate Theatre & France tour); Keep on Walking Federico (UK tour & Barcelona); Chasing Bono and Tumulus (Soho Theatre); The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Beautiful Game and A Little Princess (The Other Palace); Jerusalem (Watermill Theatre); Speech & Debate and BU21 (Trafalgar Studios); This Beautiful Future (The Yard Theatre); and Complicite’s Lionboy (world tour). Opera work includes: L’Agrippina (Barber Opera); Madame Butterfly, Jephtha and Macbeth (Iford Arts); Belshazzar (Trinity Laban Conservatoire); Vivienne (Linbury Studio, ROH); and La Bohème (OperaUpClose, 2011 Olivier Award winner).

Daniel Sørensen is a lighting designer who has worked with a number of national and international artists over the past seventeen years, such as Nico & Vinz, Wardruna and Florence & The Machine to name a few. He has also worked as a production designer for various companies at launches, as well as making custom stage clothes for, among others, Røyksopp and Gabrielle. With a background in art and fashion design, he has a good understanding of the totality of an artist's visual expression and is often consulted on everything from stage clothes to artwork for album covers in order to make it correlate with a live concept. In addition, he has held a number of courses around the country under the auspices of, among others, Kulturrom to raise his competence in lighting design and creative work at cultural centres and student scenes around the country. He has recently designed the opening exhibition for the new national museum, Nasjonalmuseet, in Oslo, and is currently on tour with Wardruna.

Finnuala McNulty trained in Theatre Design at Middlesex University and has worked at numerous fringe venues and arts festivals in London. For more than a decade she was the in-house lighting designer at the Rosemary Branch Theatre. Her credits include: The Marriage of Figaro directed by Martin Smiths; Zoop Zoop’s musical production of Snoopy for which she did both the set and lighting design; The Maids and The Bow of Ulysses directed by Gari Jones; and Race with the Devil directed by John Joe Turner. She has also designed The Illuminated Trumpet for Royal Academy of Music; collaborated with metal artist Paul Badham on Innovation, a lighting and sculpture exhibition; and provided both the set and lighting design for Men Don’t Go to War over Women at BAC.

Sally Ferguson is a lighting designer specializing in design for performance. Her work includes lighting design for high-profile productions and a wide range of theatres including Nottingham Playhouse, Sheffield Crucible, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Royal Exchange, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Young Vic, Soho Theatre, Trafalgar Studios, Bush Theatre, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, Southwark Playhouse, Park Theatre, Arcola Theatre, Queens Theatre Hornchurch, Theatre 503, Watford Palace Theatre and Riverside Studios.

Jools studied Illustration and Design, at the School of Creative Arts, Wrexham Glyndwr University. Specialising in Children's Illustration, she exhibited at the Oriel Gallery, Theatre Clwyd North Wales, leading to employment as a designer, illustrator, and workshop facilitator for youth art education programmes, throughout the region. With a love for the art nouveau icon Alphonse Mucha, the mesmerising design of Antoni Gaudí, and an inherited obsession with textiles, Jools was inspired to bring her illustrations to life through costume, and conceptual design. Headhunted by Wild Rose International & Olympic Ice Stars, she forged a longlasting collaboration as the designer on their annual UK and international productions, such as Snow White, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Carmen, and Nutcracker on Ice premiering at The Sydney Opera House, then touring Australia. Progressing to head of the costume department, Jools steered and guided on creative production, and all aspects of costume development, working alongside Olympic creative professionals, and established theatre directors. Semi-retired, she now works solo taking commissions for a broad range of creative projects.

Lucia Conejero Rodilla trained in Fine Arts and at Central School of Speech and Drama (MA Scenography with Distinction. She has worked for Sony-BMG; the costume departments of the opera Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Spain; National Youth Theatre; the Tête à Tête Festival at the Riverside Studios; and at the Sutton Theatre, London.

Sally Winter holds a MA of the Arts from University College, Bournemouth. She is known for her high-quality work, originality and innovative approach to multi-genre design and her skills in translating the written word of writers and directors.

Sharon H. Bourke trained at the Wimbledon School of Art (BA in Costume Design). She has extensively worked in the industry as a costume maker and seamstress on theatre productions and music concerts for Hannah Kinkade Ltd (Beyoncé & Jay Z Run the World Part Two World Tour 2018 - London’) and for Kenwright Ltd ( Cabaret 2018 UK Tour). She has extensive experience as Wardrobe Assistant for productions including The Book of Mormon (Sonia Friedman productions), Feast / Scottsboro Boys / Wild Swans / A Season in the Congo (Young Vic Theatre) and the 2014/15 Winter Season for the RSC ( Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon). Dressing credits include Disney’s The Lion King (Lyceum Theatre, London) West Side Story - US International Tour 2013 (Sadlers Wells) and Romeo & Juliet (English National Ballet) She is currently working as Wardrobe Assistant on Guys & Dolls at London’s Bridge Theatre. Romeo and Juliet (English National Ballet). Other credits include Costume Buyer (Royal Opera House), Costume Assistance (Almeida Theatre) and seamstress for Nicki Minaj World Tour 2019 at London’s O2 Arena.

Yana Valcheva holds an MA in Applied Arts (set design for puppet theatre) from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA) in Sofia, Bulgaria; achieving a First. Since graduating she has worked in both in theatre and puppet theatre designing sets, costume and puppets both in Bulgaria and in the UK. French surrealism, the absurd and mythology are of much influence in her playful and non-conventional work. She explores both the minimalist and the bold, in which visual symbols tend to highlight and emphasise the inner emotional world of the characters within a production.

Scarlett Plouviez Comnas was the artistic director at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington, London from 2015 - 2021.

Dr Marie Wells was WP Ker Lecturer in Norwegian in the Department of Scandinavian Studies at UCL, where she taught nineteenth and twentieth Century Norwegian literature. Her research interest focused on the plays of Henrik Ibsen and published articles on his work in British and Scandinavian journals. She has also lectured widely on other aspects of nineteenth-century literature and painting. Since her retirement in 2007 she has translated The Familiy at Gilje (Familien på Gilje) by Jonas Lie, The Making of Daniel Braut (Bondestudentar) by Arne Garborg and with a former student translated Henrik Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean for the Royal National Theatre's production of the play in 2011. In 2008 she was awarded the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for the advancement of academic and cultural values (Ridder av 1. klasse av Den Kongelige Norske Fortjenstorden).

Laura Caretti teaches Performance Anthropology at the University of Siena, Italy, where she was full professor of History of Theater and Performing Arts, coordinator of PhD in Comparative Studies: Literature, Theater and Cinema and member of the International Commission. Since 2000 she has co-directed the European School of Comparative Studies Synapsis (www.unisi.it/synapsis), and for the third year she is the lecturer and scientific director of Erasmus IP Playing Identities: Acting the Self and Society. She is a visiting professor at various European and North American universities, she is a life member of the post-graduate college Clare Hall in Cambridge and sits on the board of directors of INC (International Network of Comparative Humanities) at Princeton University. She has organised conferences and participated in various research groups i.a. the international project of the University of Toronto Culture and Human Security, with interventions on "Theatre and Human Security" at the Berlin and Toronto Conferences, and with the organization of a workshop in Siena-Pontignano. Since 1997 she has collaborated in the international activities of the Centre for Ibsen Studies in Oslo and is on the editorial board of the journal Ibsen Studies. She is also the author of numerous essays dedicated to the art of actors and actresses, directing, adaptations, the intersections between theater and cinema.

Founded and led by Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike in 2005, Barokksolistene is now recognised as one of the world’s most dynamic and exciting groups working in the field of historically informed performance, fusing virtuoso musicianship with flawless ensemble playing. Constantly striving to reach out to new audiences, their passion to engage with folk and experimental music, improvisation, visual arts, dance and story-telling has led them to create unique concert experiences which play to sold-out audiences worldwide.

Bergen National Opera presents world-class opera, from fully staged operas in Grieghallen, to festivals and concerts. BNO’s two major collaborators are Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra – one of the world’s oldest orchestras – and Edvard Grieg Korene. BNO is working with highly imaginative creative teams and international acclaimed singers.

Early Voices is a professional vocal quintet performing renaissance and baroque music, and Norwegian folk music with a nordic sound. Early Voices’ five singers are experienced soloists, and have a varied background as ensemble singers from institutions such as The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Vocal Art, Kilden Vokalensemble, Det norske damekor and Trondheim Vokalensemble. Early Voices has held highly acclaimed concerts and tours in Norway, and is supported by Arts Council Norway, Furestiftelsen, FFUK and Oslo municipality.

In recent years, the Edvard Grieg Kor has achieved recognition both nationally and internationally. In addition to its own concerts regionally, nationally and internationally, EGK participates in world-class performances and recordings through its work as an opera choir and symphonic choir for Bergen National Opera and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Together with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the choir has won prestigious Gramophone awards, including 'Recording of the year' for 'Peter Grimes'. The Edvard Grieg Choir will be part of the program for the BBC Proms 2023, and will perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 11 August alone, and together with the Royal Northern College of Music's Chamber Choir, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, and will be conducted by Edward Gardner.

The New York Baroque Dance Company (NYBDC) founded in 1976 by Catherine Turocy, Artistic Director, and Ann Jacoby is still leading the historical dance field today. The company specializes in producing 17th and 18th century programs ranging from street performances to fully staged operas. There are over 60 operas in its repertoire as well as reconstructed dances and ballets choreographed in period style. Through residencies at educational institutions serving grades k-12 and at the university level, the NYBDC instructs professionals and the general public, thus preserving our cultural heritage. The NYBDC has toured North America, Europe and Japan with conductors James Richman, John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan and Wolfgang Katschner. In their home base of New York City, the company produces concerts annually with Concert Royal directed by James Richman. The NYBDC also performs with Opera Lafayette Orchestra and Chorus, The Dallas Bach Society, Mercury Baroque, Apollo’s Fire and Philharmonia Baroque. Groundbreaking productions over the past three decades include the premiere of Jean Philippe Rameau’s Les Boreades (not performed in the 18th century because of Rameau’s death) and Hippolyte et Aricie, both at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the Opera de Lyon; Henry Purcell’s Indian Queen performed at the Barbican in London; the award winning Scylla et Glaucus by Jean Marie Leclair performed at the Opera de Lyon as well as over 100 performances of a double bill with Rameau’s Pygmalion and George Frederick Handel’s Terpsicore. The company is very proud to have performed in Handel’s operas Terpsicore, Ariodante, Arianna, Alcina, Atalanta, Orlando, and Teseo at the International Handel Festival in Goettingen, Germany. The NYBDC is very appreciative of ongoing support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and its individual contributors. The company is being archived by the New York Public Library and many archival videos of past performances are on file in the Dance Collection and available for scholarly research. In 2017, Turocy now directs a company of 8 core dancers and 12 auxiliary dancers. It is the only company of literate dancers actively working with a notation system which allows them to put a concert together within 3 days, much as a music group can sight read music and perform. Turocy and members of the company also create new ballets in the Baroque style/context in the same way a ballet choreographer uses steps to create a new work, using the same process to explore poetic ideas and challenge the talents of the performers. Literally taking the past into the future they also work in the new genre of New Baroque dance which uses period steps and concepts in a contemporary context. (Company XIV directed by Austin McCormick is a good example of this new burgeoning form). Today, work has expanded internationally with guest appearances (see NYBDC Bio) and over 60 opera- ballets, numerous theatrical works and site specific creations in repertoire. Our dance heritage lives on through the legacy of the NYBDC, a living resource for dancers, artists and scholars.

Critically acclaimed for a “rich, natural sound that’s larger and more complex than the sum of its parts,” (NPR) and as “singers of superb musicianship and vocal allure” (The New Yorker), New York Polyphony is one of the foremost vocal chamber ensembles active today. Their innovative programming spans Gregorian chant to contemporary commissions, and their focus on familiar and rare works of the 12-17th centuries has helped bring early music to modern audiences. Founded in 2006, the quartet’s growing discography includes two GRAMMY-nominated albums, and many of their releases have topped the “best of” lists of The New Yorker, Gramophone, and The New York Times. Their release And the sun darkened (2021, BIS) received accolades from publications worldwide: BBC MusicMagazine hailed it as “imaginatively programmed” and “immaculately sung,” Early Music America called the disc “radiant,” and Klassik Heute applauded the album’s “flawlessly pure sound that amazes the listener.” Lamentationes (2019, BIS) was a finalist in the 2020 Gramophone Awards and praised by Classics Today as “perfect ensemble singing, ideally recorded.” It features Francisco de Peñalosa’s Lamentationes Jeremiae Feria V, which was used as part of Aleph Earth, a groundbreaking audiovisual piece developed in collaboration with the University of Oregon’s Artificial Intelligence Creative Practice Research Group. Missa Charles Darwin (2017, Navona Records) features American composer Gregory W. Brown’s innovative setting of the writings of Charles Darwin; New York Polyphony has twice performed the work at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin underneath the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world. Roma Æterna (2016, BIS) debuted at #4 on the Billboard Classical chart and was hailed as “resplendent and elegant” by the San Francisco Chronicle. 2014’s Sing thee Nowell (BIS) earned the group a second GRAMMY nomination in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category, having earned their first GRAMMY nomination in 2018 for Times go by Turns (BIS) in the same category. New York Polyphony tours extensively, performing in some of the world’s finest concert halls and participating in major festivals at home and abroad. Engagements have included Wigmore and Cadogan Halls (London), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Stavanger Kammermusikkfestival (Norway) in 2018 and 2023, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston) in 2017 and 2022, Taipei International Choral Festival, Heidelberger Frühling (Germany), Tage Alter Musik Regensburg (Germany), Festival Internacional de Música Abvlensis (Spain), Cartagena Festival International de Música (Colombia), and Early Music Vancouver. They presented Jonathan Berger’s opera Visitations at Bing Concert Hall as part of their 2013 residency at Stanford University. As of 2023, the quartet has performed in all but eight US states.

The Royal Norwegian Marines Band (RNMB) is one of five Norwegian professional military bands. The band is a unique and popular ensemble, and currently consists of 27 musicians. Every year, the RNMB carries out a number of assignments for the Norwegian Armed Forces, the government and the Royal House. Through concerts and other assignments in connection with state visits, national anniversaries and official ceremonies, inside and outside the Armed Forces, the RNMB contributes to increase visibility and focus on the important function the Armed Forces have in society. Through its concerts, RNMB has built up a reputation as one of the world’s leading brass bands and has represented the Armed Forces and the nation of Norway on assignments in, among other places, the USA, France, Russia, China and Spain. José Carreras, Lise Davidsen, Solveig Kringlebotn and Ole Edvard Antonsen are just some of the artists RNMB has collaborated with over the years.

Recently Visiting scholar at Princeton, musicologist Malcolm Bruno lives in Wales. He is editor of a number of ongoing major publications and reconstructions for Breitkopf & Härtel and Bärenreiter Verlag in Germany. Over the past 25 years, he has also produced many CD recordings for major labels specialising in baroque and choral repertoire, initially as Associate Director of the Taverner Consort and Players, and then as a series independent-producer for BBC Radio 3 and Public Radio International in the USA. He is Artistic Director of Larvik Barokk Festival in Norway where he also chairs the board of the ensemble Barokksolistene which he founded with Bjarte Eike and Svein Eriksen in 2005. A musical childhood in America, first at the American Boychoir and then at the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools, led to undergraduate study at New York University. Moving to London then for postgraduate research – first for a doctorate in religious studies at King’s College and afterwards as a composer for an MMus at the Royal College of Music – gave rise to an Octavia scholarship to continue composition studies with Max Deutsch in Paris. Returning to Britain, he became music producer for Central Television in Birmingham, while establishing the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music in London with Ivor Bolton. With a growing interest then in period performance he produced Roger Norrington’s landmark Orfeo in 1986, before beginning his long association with Andrew Parrott.

Berilslav Juraic has professional experience in producing and programming postdramatic and international theatre both in the UK and Croatia. Between 2014 and 2016 he was the artistic director of Sutton Theatre where he presented a season of contemporary North African theatre. His research interests concern post-war and contemporary Japanese theatre and performance, postdramatic theatre, multilingual theatre, theatre and migration and liminality in theatre-making. He has also reviewed international theatre for a leading Croatian theatre website, Teatar.hr.

Elin Feen is the former head of Sandefjord Arts Council and was hired as creative consultant for Vestfold and Telemark Theatre Council. She currently works as an advisory consultant for Vestfold County Municipality. Her professional training includes university degrees in Theatre Studies, Sociology, Media, and Business Management. She is the theatre director and producer for Halve Kongeriket AS.

Elin Viveca Hellesøe Rusti has been general manager at the dance academy Studio Nille for 20 years. Elin grew up at her mother's ballet school in Oslo, where she has also taught. She later worked as a professional dancer and choreographer for six years at various theaters in Oslo. In 1994, Elin moved to Larvik, and has been associated with Studio Nille since 1996, both as a teacher, project manager for a theater groups and producer for the Kompaniene.

Hilde Syversen is a freelance writer based in London. She ventured into journalism following her studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.