Harry Sever - Music Director
BBC Music Magazine ‘Rising Star’ conductor Harry Sever is fast developing a wide-ranging repertoire and a fluency in both operatic and orchestral style.
A finalist in both the LSO’s Donatella Flick and the Athens International Conducting Competitions, he was Ring Cycle Conducting Fellow at Longborough Festival Opera from 2022-24.
Recent and upcoming engagements include Rheingold / Walküre (Grange Park Opera), Cavalleria Rusticana / Aleko / Carmen (Opera North), Siegfried (Den Ny Opera), Walküre / Siegfried / Fairy Queen (Longborough) Fantasio (Garsington), La Traviata (Opera Holland Park), Cendrillon (Bampton Classical Opera), The Nutcracker (Peter Schaufuss Ballet), concerts with the orchestra of Welsh National Opera and recordings with the orchestra of Opera North.
As an assistant conductor and member of music staff, Harry has worked with Scottish Opera, English National Opera, the Royal Danish Opera, Den Jyske Opera (Danish National Opera), Garsington, Opera Holland Park, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the Grange Festival, and the Britten Sinfonia at Sadler’s Wells.
His education work has included projects with The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Royal Opera Academy, Copenhagen, British Youth Opera, Birmingham Conservatoire and Trinity Laban Conservatoire.
A composer for stage and screen, Harry’s shows Mr Men & Little Miss, James and the Giant Peach and Guess How Much I Love You have toured internationally. For the theatre, scores include The Kreutzer Sonata (Arcola Theatre), Sleeping Beauty and My Mother Said I Never Should (The Theatre Chipping Norton), King Lear, As You Like It, Love’s Labours Lost (The Minack Theatre); for television, Stalker (CBS); for the radio, Rossum’s Universal Robots (BBC Radio 4).
Harry studied at the Queen’s College, Oxford and trained at the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Lucy Hollins - Principal Guest Conductor
Lucy is a conductor, presenter, writer and animateur. She is Creative Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra’s Junior and Senior Choirs, Associate Chorus Director of the London Symphony Chorus, a vocal leader for Music of Life, Creative Lead for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Young Creatives project, Principal Guest Conductor of the Cambridge Philharmonic, a conducting tutor for the Association of British Choral Directors, and Conductor of CBSO SO Vocal.
A leading expert in music education and engagement, Lucy is passionate about opening up opportunities for everyone to experience the transformative powers of making music together, regardless of their age, background or level of experience. She presents schools and family concerts for London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Cambridge Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Lucy is proud to be co-author of How To Make Your Choir Sound Awesome with Suzzie Vango, published by Banks Music in October 2022.
Simon Hewitt Jones, Orchestra Leader
English violinist Simon Hewitt Jones is a musical omnivore, working as a performer, teacher, writer, presenter and producer across a wide range of creative projects.
As well as leading Cambridge Philharmonic, Simon leads the Guildford Symphony Orchestra, guest leads the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra, and performs across the UK with the London Concertante chamber orchestra. He is also a violinist with House of Light, a Berlin-based new-wave shoegaze rock band.
His recent collaborations include projects with OperaUpClose, concerts in London with the Piccadilly Sinfonietta, and a major recording project with Antony Pitts and the Tonus Peregrinus singers, with whom he has recorded for Naxos and Hyperion.
Simon is also a session musician and recording artist in London, having played with artists as diverse as Massive Attack, Ed Sheeran and Deltron 3030, including at Glastonbury Festival. After co-founding the Artea String Quartet at the Royal Academy of Music, he led the Fifth Quadrant (Court Lane) chamber ensemble for over a decade, receiving a BBC Premiere Award for recording the chamber music of Imogen Holst. His other chamber music collaborations include the Medici Quartet, the late Sir John Tavener and the Carducci Quartet.
He made an acclaimed solo recording with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, broadcast extensively on TV and radio, and performed at leading festivals including Spitalfields, Aldeburgh, Henley and Gregynog, as well as in most of the UK’s cathedrals and concert halls.
An experienced teacher and workshop leader, Simon has worked at every level of music education in the UK and Ireland, from early years and primary to SEND and teacher training. For nearly two decades he has also contributed to educational and cultural development programmes in Palestine.
In television and film, Simon has worked as a music consultant and actor coach on major productions for Disney, Netflix and other networks. He founded ViolinSchool (now StringSchool), a leading UK provider of adult violin education, and was previously a researcher at the Royal Academy of Music.
Find out more about Simon HERE
Jorge Jiménez, Associate Orchestra Leader
Jorge Jiménez is a violinist, composer and conductor with an adventurous approach to music creation. Equally at home performing on historical instruments, conducting from the violin, directing opera, composing electronic music or creating projects that bring music into unexpected places, he has built a career that refuses to sit neatly in one box. His repertoire spans from the Middle Ages to the 21st century, driven by curiosity and a desire to discover what happens when familiar music is seen from a different angle.
He is the founder and artistic director of Tercia Realidad, winner of the FestClásica Award 2023, artistic director of Música Callada Festival in Spain and of the concert series Bach in Ipswich in the UK. His projects range from reimagining Bach’s Goldberg Variations for solo violin to exploring the meeting point between music, theatre and storytelling.
As a soloist, concertmaster and ensemble leader, Jorge has worked with ensembles including La Risonanza, Forma Antiqva, L’Arpeggiata, The Hanover Band, Capella Cracoviensis, I Fagiolini and Laudonia Ensemble. His orchestral engagements include guest leadership with Euskadi Orchestra, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Oviedo Filarmonía and Opera Vlaanderen, among others. As a director and conductor, he has worked with Capella Cracoviensis, the Northern Chamber Orchestra and Kiez Oper, bringing his experience as a violinist and orchestral leader to orchestral, operatic and theatrical projects.
His work in theatre includes regular appearances as musical director and soloist at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, where he has led projects including The Secret Theatre, featuring music by Alexander Balanescu, and Four Seasons, with music by Max Richter. His performances and solo projects have taken him across Europe, Australia, South America and Canada.
Jorge’s recordings reflect his curiosity about the violin and its repertoire. His solo violin transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (Pan Classics, 2022) offers a fresh take on one of the great keyboard works, an interpretation described by La Lectura as “risky and original”. His recording of Bach’s Cello Suites in Hans Sitt’s 19th-century adaptation for violin explores another unexpected perspective on familiar music, with The Strad praising his “effortless technical finesse”.
Whether performing alone or leading an orchestra, Jorge is interested in music as something alive: music that can surprise, unsettle, move us and make us hear things differently. He plays a 1720 Bergonzi violin from the Jonathan Sparey Collectio
Chorus Masters - season 26-27
Term One
‘Rising star’ Alexander Trigg is an organist and director based in Cambridge, UK. Alongside a busy freelance performing schedule, Alex holds roles with a number of choirs, such as Chorus Accompanist with Cambridge Philharmonic, and with the University’s most exciting new ensemble, Cambridge Schola.
A champion of youth music, Alex works with local schools to provide free music education through his charity St Andrew’a Music School. He also runs Festival of Choirs, a company which brings together choirs from around the world to perform large-scale concerts in magnificent venues.
Term Two
