PATRONS & TRUSTEES
PATRONS
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Conductor
Acclaimed British conductor Dame Jane Glover is Music Director of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque and Principal Guest Conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony. Guest conducting throughout the United States and Europe, she has recorded extensively and is the author of the critically acclaimed books Mozart’s Women, Handel in London and Mozart in Italy.
Operatic Bass
Between 1972 and 2020 the bass Robert Lloyd performed an enormous range of repertoire at the Royal Opera and the great opera houses of the world. He was the first British Bass to sing the role of Boris Godunov, in a production by Andre Tarkovsky which transferred to the Kirov Opera in Leningrad. He has appeared in virtually all the great opera houses of the world, featured in several films, notably Bluebeard's Castle, and Parsifal. He has also written and presented a large number of radio programmes about opera and the voice. He was made a CBE in 1991
Baritone
Roderick Williams is one of Britain’s best-loved baritones. Having been a choral scholar at Oxford, he went into teaching and later re-trained at the Guildhall as an opera singer. Early in his career he played the leading role of Tarquinius in Benjamin Britten’s version of The Rape of Lucretzia and has sung as a soloist at the Proms, including the spectacular Last Night of the Proms in 2014. He composed his first Shakespeare song at the age of ten and has since recorded much of the baritone repertoire, including Gerald Finzi’s Songs from Shakespeare’s plays. In 2017 he was awarded the OBE for services to music.
TRUSTEES
After a career with the BBC, in academia and as a European civil servant, Martyn Bond is currently Chairman of the Trustees of Shakespeare in Music. His passion is making things happen, now bringing the Bard to life in the music of his legacy. His own musical education began when he was a chorister in Portsmouth Cathedral and his admiration for Shakespeare sprang from amateur productions at school. What matters to him now is bringing that combination of Shakespeare and Music to a wider, discerning audience in a flourishing SIM Festival year after year.
Michael Dobson is Director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon and Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham; he is also a Trustee of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, an Honorary Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, co-director of the Shakespeare Centre, China, and an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the Higher School of Ukraine. His publications include: The Making of the National Poet; England's Elizabeth (with Nicola Watson); The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (with Stanley Wells); Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today; and Shakespeare and Amateur Performance.
Siri Fischer Hansen studied English and theatre history at Copenhagen University, including Shakespeare’s use of music and Shakespeare-inspired opera, ballet and symphonic works. She worked for Shakespeare’s Globe from 1985, as Administrator and Secretary of the Friends for many years. Also at British Theatre Association, English National Opera, Royal Albert Hall. At the Royal Opera House she worked in Corporate Affairs, for the Friends and from 2001-19 for the Young Artists Programme. She is Young Artist Adviser to Grange Park Opera, freelance casting consultant and Opera Prelude study day panellist. She is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, where she serves as Honorary Archivist.
Bruce O'Neil
Bruce O’Neil is Head of Music for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has been Music Director & Supervisor for over 50 RSC productions, including their global hit Matilda, and Shakespeare Live!, a BBC TV live broadcast from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016, which was nominated for a BAFTA Television award.
Since 2013 he has been Music Supervisor of the RSC’s Music & Speech recordings, comprising music commissioned by the RSC for every Shakespeare play, including scores composed for the recent survey through the canon between 2013 – 2022 as well as music held at Shakespeare Birthplace Trust archive, composed for productions in Stratford throughout the 20th Century.
Paul Higgins was the founding Artistic Director of the award-winning Theatre 503 in London. He has worked as Associate and Assistant Director in the West End and for Royal Shakespeare Company, Chichester Festival Theatre and Almeida Theatre. In opera he has worked as Revival and Assistant Director for Covent Garden, La Scala, Glyndebourne, Rome, Copenhagen, ENO, Seiji Ozawa Festival Japan, Paris, Luxembourg and Amsterdam.
New Zealand-born Leila Alexander graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Music with Honours and a Bachelor of Laws. She went on to become a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand and also an established and highly respected operatic soprano. She is enthusiastic about developing the Shakespeare in Music Festival to include opera alongside its now established emphasis on song.
She studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 2020 in Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared, accompanied by Julius Drake and broadcast live by the BBC. With professional experience in both traditional opera and commercial performance, Leila Alexander has taken lead roles in oratorios and operas, both classic and modern, from Pergolesi and Bizet to Ah Sam and Claire Scholes.
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Tim Raistrick is very active in the Stratford community and beyond. He currently chairs five charities, including the Friends of the Guild Chapel, Denne Gilkes Memorial Fund and Stratford Municipal Charities, and is on the board of a further five including the Friends of the Music of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford Chamber Choir and the Stratford Music Festival all three of which he co-founded. Tim is the longest serving member of Holy Trinity Church Choir, a member of Stratford Choral Society for over 45 years and regularly acts with a number of drama companies, with Shakespearean roles including Prospero, Oberon, Benedick and Malvolio (five times). He has appeared in seven RSC productions and three critically acclaimed productions for Longborough Festival Opera.
A retired underwriter, Tim was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the Chartered Insurance Institute.
