1. Describe yourself in three words
Team-worker, sometimes nonchalant (but working on it) and geeky-cool (so I have been told last week).
2. What’s your role in this summer’s production?
I will be music director; that means making sure we all play and sing together, and that we all enjoy performing this marvelous music. I will also be terrorising everyone with French pronunciation.
3. What’s your vision for the production?
My priority is to make sure we are all as demanding with ourselves musically as Ravel was with himself. It is a wonderful and scary tale of childhood that I am sure we can all relate to. I want to make sure that the music conveys the magic as well as the strangeness of the story, in collaboration with Miranda Wright’s staging and Dena Lague’s choreography, both very inspiring artists.
4. What do you do when you’re not working with Samling?
I play for opera rehearsals, coach singers and give concerts. I love walking about London and have a strong addiction to coffee.
5. What’s your favourite opera & why?
A very difficult question. I would say I enjoy playing Handel enormously, especially Ariodante. Any of Mozart’s Da Ponte trilogy (as everyone else I should imagine) and of course my dear French repertoire, more specifically Ravel, Debussy and Poulenc.
6. What are you most looking forward to about the production?
The team effort culminating in what I expect will be a thrilling moment of theatre and magic.
7. What do you order from the chip shop?
I discovered fish and chips late in life when I moved to London. It is a part of British culture I embraced without too much difficulty, however I am afraid my taste buds aren’t developed enough to tell the difference between cod and haddock: anything deep fried will do!
8. What’s your favourite ice cream flavour
Liquorice
9. Give us your elevator pitch for why people should come and see this production
A magical and strange tale of childhood with the most enchanting, touching and hilarious music. Parents wishing to teach their naughty children a lesson should definitely come along!