DONALD MAXWELL - Principal Patron and Artistic Consultant

Donald Maxwell was born in Perth, graduated in Geography from Edinburgh University and studied singing with Joseph Hislop. He made his debut with Scottish Opera thirty years ago and has since sung with all the major British Opera companies, at the BBC Proms and abroad at La Scala Milan, the Salzburg Fesival, the Vienna Staatsoper and the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires.   He has a repertoire of over 100 roles ranging from Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus to Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and including Balstrode, Iago, Wozzeck, the Flying Dutchman, Rigoletto, Nick Shadow, Golaud, Faninal and Don Alfonso. He is particularly noted for his portrayal of Falstaff, which he has sung at the Edinburgh International Festival and in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Milan and Vienna. He has also created several world premieres in works by Holt, Manoury, Harle, Berio and Eotvos. Donald Maxwell’s recordings include Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Falstaff in Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love, Carmina Burana, Kismet, and several Gilbert and Sullivan operas including a video of The Mikado. He has had a long association with the Buxton Festival since its inception, including directing The Beautiful Galathea and Pimpinone. He has also directed The Bear and Die Fledermaus for Clonter Opera. He is Director of the National Opera Studio and Head of Opera Studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. In 2008 he returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and English National Opera and also makes his debut in Houston and with the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

RICHARD HETHERINGTON - Principal Patron and Artistic Consultant

Richard Hetherington is a permanent member of the full-time Music Staff at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He had an earlier connection with the ROH in 1981 when, as a treble, he premiered the title role in Henze’s Pollicino, and in 1982 he sang Yniold in Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande in a cast which included Sir Thomas Allen, Anne Howells, Gabriel Bacquier and Gwynne Howell. Since joining the ROH he has worked very closely with Music Director, Antonio Pappano, on productions including Das Rheingold, Werther, Ariadne auf Naxos and Aida, as well as on Die Zauberflöte, The Turn of the Screw, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Don Giovanni, The Cunning Little Vixen and Luisa Miller with conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras and many others. Initial studies at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio were followed by a number of engagements in Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Japan. Freelance work at the Royal Opera included productions of Le Nozze di Figaro, The Turn of the Screw, The Enchantress, Il Barbieri di Siviglia, Tosca, Turandot, Billy Budd and Otello. He was chief repetiteur to Richard Hickox on Paul Bunyan and he has since frequently worked as his special assistant in the opera house, concert hall and recording studio, and worked as his chief coach for three successive years at the Spoleto Festival - in 1998 on The Cunning Little Vixen (in Czech) and The Consul (with its composer Gian Carlo Menotti), in 1999 on War and Peace (in Russian) and in 2000 on Der Rosenkavalier.  At the 2000 Spoleto Festival he prepared and directed performances of Rachmaninov’s Vespers with the Spoleto Festival Chorus, which he formed. Richard Hetherington worked with Richard Hickox on the acclaimed Chandos recordings of War and Peace and Paul Bunyan and was assistant conductor on the Chandos/Hickox recordings of Britten’s Billy Budd and Albert Herring and Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love. In 1998/99 he worked as a member of the production team for Aix-en-Provence Festival's Don Giovanni (directed by Peter Brook and conducted by Daniel Harding), which toured to Lyon, Milan, Tokyo and Brussels, conducting two of the Brussels performances. In recent years for Aix he has been involved in productions of The Turn of the Screw, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and La Traviata (all with Daniel Harding). In 2005 he was assistant conductor and continuo player for the Patrice Chereau production of Cosi fan Tutte, which toured to Paris and Vienna in 2006. In July 2007, in addition to the roles of assistant conductor and continuo player, he conducted the final performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Aix Festival. In 2006 and 2007 he was assistant conductor to Daniel Harding on Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Festival. In September 2007 he will work on the Ring cycle at the Royal Opera House and in 2008 will assist Richard Hickox at Opera Australia on Billy Budd. He has broadcast for Radio 3 and Classic FM, has been a member of the staff at the Royal College of Music and coaches regularly at the National Opera Studio. He was assistant conductor on the BBC TV production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, broadcast on BBC2 on Christmas Eve 2002.

DENNIS O'NEILL - Principal Patron

Born in Wales, Dennis O'Neill is one of the world's leading operatic tenors. He has specialise in the works of Verdi and has sung twenty one of his roles to date. He was awarded the 2005 Verdi Medal by the Amici di Verdi. He studied privately with the renowned Frederick Cox in Manchester and London and later in his career, following a Royal Society of Arts award, in Mantua with Campogalliani and in Rome with Ricci. He has enjoyed a long association with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where his many roles have included Rodolfo (La Bohème), Duca (Rigoletto), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Macduff (Macbeth), Gustavo (Un Ballo in Maschera), Foresto (Attila), Otello, Don Carlos, Radames (Aida), Aroldo, Carlo (Giovanna d’Arco), Jacopo (I due Foscari) and Canio (I Pagliacci), conducted by Placido Domingo. For the Metropolitan Opera New York, he has appeared as Alfredo (La Traviata), Rodolfo (La Bohème), Radames (Aida) – conducted by James Levine and Domingo - Duca (Rigoletto), Turiddu (Cavalleria Rusticana) and Canio (I Pagliacci). Other North American engagements have included appearances with the Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, Vancouver Opera and concerts with the Philadelphia, Cleveland, Montreal, and Ottawa Symphonies, and for the Cincinnati Festival. A frequent guest at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, his debut in Un Ballo in Maschera was followed by Manrico (Il Trovatore) in a new production conducted by Sinopoli , and by Der Rosenkavalier, Tosca, Lucia, Simon Boccanegra, Aida and the title role in Otello conducted by Zubin Mehta. He has also appeared extensively for the Vienna Staatsoper. He has performed extensively throughout Europe, visiting cities including Vienna, Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, Hamburg, Mannheim , Dresden, Hanover, Leipzig, Munich, Weimar, Halle, Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris, Nice, Marseilles, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Copenhagen, Zurich, Geneva, Athens, Brussels, Antwerp, Barcelona, Madrid, San Sebastian, Oviedo, Lisbon, Porto, Milan, Rome, Bologna, Turin and Verona. He has retained a close and special relationship with his home-based Welsh National Opera, where he serves as a board member and performs most seasons. Dennis O'Neill is a very busy concert artist and is well known for his performances of Verdi's Requiem which he has recorded twice, broadcast many times on both television and radio and sung with conductors including Riccardo Muti, Sir Colin Davis, Sinopoli, Sir Simon Rattle and Pritchard. Notable concert performances have included Idomeneo with Sir Charles Mackerras at the BBC Proms, Oberto at the Edinburgh Festival, Aida in Tel Aviv with Mehta and Le Damnation de Faust in Paris and Philadelphia with Dutoit, to name but a few. Dennis O'Neill's own television series for the BBC was enormously popular (the accompanying recording went to the top of the classical record charts) and he subsequently completed a three-part televison series on Caruso. His many recordings include several solo albums and videos of Der Rosenkavalier with Solti, Die Fledermaus with Kiri te Kanawa, conducted by Domingo, and Macbeth with Sinopoli. Dennis O’Neill was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 New Year’s Honours list and his many other acknowledgments most recently include the prestigious award of honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music. (Hon.R.A.M). He believes passionately in educating the next generation of opera singers and has given masterclasses throughout the world, specialising in the italian repertoire and bel canto technique. He is Director of the Artists' Development Programme at Wexford Festival Opera and Director of the Cardiff International Academy of Voice, which he founded in January 2007. He serves on numerous panels of adjudicators at various international competitions.

MARK WILLIAMS - Music Director

Mark is one of the UK's leading keyboard players, and has been described as 'the shooting star of the international organ scene' (Berliner Zeitung).  He was Organ Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he also held an academic scholarship, and was appointed Assistant Organist at St Paul's Cathedral in London and Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral School in 2000, at the age of 21. He relinquished both posts in April 2006 in order to pursue his freelance career. Mark has appeared with leading orchestras such as the King's Consort, Florilegium, the City of London Sinfonia and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as a continuo player, and has led masterclasses in choral training, singing and organ performance in the UK, the USA and Africa.  His recital career has taken him all over the world. He gained his first experience of working in opera at the Buxton Festival in 2006, and has since explored the genre through coaching a number of distinguished singers. He made his operatic debut conducting Don Giovanni in Ireland for English Chamber Opera in March 2007