As part of the Royal Ballet & Opera based at the historic Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, in the capacity of Opera Senior Manager from 2016 to 2021.
In this role I led the collaboration between The Royal Opera and the Learning and Participation department in order to achieve an integrated approach to the organisation’s engagement with artists, audiences and the communities we sought to serve; aligned to our organisational values of excellence, curiosity and theatricality.

I worked with colleagues to design, produce, deliver, and promote creative programmes that engage everyone of all ages with music & theatre, developing work representative of cultural diversity and reflecting the artistic and business policies of the organisation.

Following the three-year renovation of the venue it reopened its doors 2018-19, launching with a programme of public daytime events called ‘Open Up’. As a Senior Creative Producer for this programme in addition to my portfolio of work, my responsibilities for Open Up consisted of delivering: -
43 Recitals at Lunch in the Crush Room featuring top ROH artists.
39 Live at Lunch performances: non- ticketed, often streamed online (and RPS nominated)
36 Opera Dots sessions for 0-5 years (nominated for an International Opera Award)
15 Large scale Big Sings for audiences up to 100 capacity
12 Family Sunday events reaching audiences of 36,000
11-week Streetwise Opera Community Residency as featured on BBC Sunday Morning Live
3 ROH Lates for ages 16+ to enjoy a night-time venue takeover
1 Month of Sundays Festival programme reaching 12,000 people

In the first season of the initiative we welcomed over 1 million people through our doors, illustrating our commitment to making the house a home.

I’m proud also to have established the RPS and Opera Award nominated national dramatic-singing programme `Create and Sing` for KS1-KS3, which has engaged 87,000+ children and 3000+ teachers since its launch. 100% of participants in the 22/23 academic year would recommend the Create & Sing programme to other schools and educators.

I also directed the long-standing ROH Youth Opera Company, a free to attend youth music training programme for young people aged 8-13 years. During my tenure young people were invited to join following a series of 3-6 hour welcome workshops which take place first in their communities and then at the ROH. 50 young people make the core ensemble who are selected based on potential not on previous formal training. Each season they could expect to be mainstage children’s chorus, ambassadors for our national learning work and create work themselves with support from composer(s) and librettist(s). I engaged new creative teams to join the company for each module of the company’s work so the young people had the opportunity to work with as many professionals as possible.

During my tenure ROH’s learning and participation talent development work extended to the ages of 21 years with programme of work available in London and in the West Midlands, in partnership with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, taking the learnings from our inclusive talent development training and national work forward for the pre-/ vocational age group to be further supported.

My role also included working with the Jette Parker Young Artists, the Royal Opera Chorus and each Production’s company of national and international artists to identify opportunities for them to engage with audiences, the creative community within the organisation and/ or strategic partners or public. This ranged from providing them continued professional development training in coaching; to developing a piece with a homeless charity and its clients; to facilitating the training of primary school teachers by international directors; to producing ROH Insights and masterclasses etc.

Partnerships ranged from local, national to international groups across the music, theatre, arts, education, voluntary, community, health and social care sectors. During my tenure the organisation was also one of the first to launch the UK Theatre Green Book which has also continued to build momentum.

My goal was then and remains today to integrate the excellent and exceptional into as many people’s everyday lives as possible.