Music Director: Orlando Jopling
Credit: Karolina Kuras
Orlando Jopling conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Mozart Players and the Irish Chamber Orchestra among many others, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio.
He co-founded the contemporary opera company Tête à Tête and is now Artistic Director of wildarts.org.uk, conducting over 50 performances each year with them. He was associate conductor of English National Ballet, conducting Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring, Akram Khan’s Giselle, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Cinderella, Manon and many contemporary scores. He works as a guest at the Royal Opera House and Royal Ballet, and has conducted over 25 opera productions with Savoy Opera, Independent Opera, British Youth Opera and others.
He was principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Royal Orchestral Society for ten years, transforming their repertoire to include twentieth and 21st century composers, and continues to conduct a range of amateur and semi-professional groups when he can, including Weekend Opera Workshops.
Orlando read music at Trinity College Cambridge where formative influences were the Wagner expert John Deathridge and Janáçek expert Paul Wingfield. He studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London where the principal teachers were Colin Metters, George Hurst, Colin Davis and Ilya Musin.
Chair: Jon Cooley
Jon Cooley is an amateur horn player who has been involved with numerous orchestras and ensembles across London and beyond for many years and was a co-founder of Harmony Sinfonia in Lewisham Borough in 2009. In the past ten years he has been involved with Fulham / Regents Opera, Saffron Opera and New Palace Opera, and has a fathomless and unhealthy obsession with Wagner’s horn writing, though his musical interests are actually more diverse than this might indicate. In his previous life he was an NHS manager.