Advisory Panel GOP1

Meet the Panel

The Advisory Panel for The Genesis Prizes for Opera is a diverse group of people that includes several arts professionals. Everyone on the panel shares a passion for the commissioning of new work and enthusiasm for nurturing emerging talent.

John Studzinski
Chairman

Boston-born John Studzinski graduated from Bowdoin College with two BA degrees, in biology and sociology, and gained his MBA from the University of Chicago. He is currently Deputy Chairman of Morgan Stanley International Limited where he has served for more than 20 years. He is a trustee of the Tate Gallery, a life trustee of the Sir John Soane Museum, a member of the finance committee of The Passage, and is on the advisory board of the London Symphony Orchestra. John Studzinski is also a trustee of the international human rights organisation Human Rights Watch and is Chairman of its European effort.

Hear an interview with John Studzinski...

This is an archived biography of John, to see an up-to-date biography, please see the John Studzinski section of the site.

Giorgio Battistelli
Composer

Giorgio Battistelli was born in Albano Laziale (Italy) in 1953. He studied composition, music history and piano with respectively Giancarlo Bizzi, Claudio Annibaldi and Antonello Neri at the A. Casella Conservatory of Aquila. In 1994 he founded the research and experimental group 'Edgard Varese' and the instrumental ensemble 'Beat 72' (Rome). Between 1985 and 1986 Battistelli was one of the guests of the 'Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst' in Berlin. In 1990 he won the Siae Prize for Lyrics and, in 1993, the 'Cervo Prize' for contemporary music.

Among his most important works are Experimentum Mundi, Globe Theatre, Keplers Traum, Ascolto di Rembrandt and The Cenci.

The Cenci was premiered at Almeida Opera in 1997. Based upon an authentic story of the Renaissance, The Cenci recounts the bloody revenge exacted upon the Count Cenci by his wife and daughter for having raped his daughter and numerous other crimes. This subject was initially covered by Antonin Artaud and his Theatre of Cruelty, a treatment from which Battistelli drew inspiration. Tempo Reale, the Italian electronic music group, collaborated to create an extraordinarily daring musical environment, using live signal processing to modify the orchestral and vocal performances in real time.

Since 1996 he has been Artistic Director of the Orchestra della Toscana. He is currently working on a new music theatre piece entitled The Embalmer, for the 2002 Almeida Opera season.

Patrick Dickie
Artistic Director

Patrick Dickie is artistic advisor for The Genesis Prizes for Opera. He co-devised the structure of the Prizes with Jonathan Reekie and is producing the final productions for Genesis at the Almeida Theatre.

Patrick read English at the University of Leeds, where he founded the theatre company, Open Stage, with whom he directed La Gioconda, a devised theatre piece (Richard Demarco/BAC) and film (1993 IETA Premiere Award). He trained as a director under the Arts Council Trainee Director's bursary at ENO and subsequently worked as Staff Director at English Touring Opera and English National Opera (1992-95).

He has been involved as director and producer in many new opera and music theatre projects, including Paul Gladstone Reid's Miracles project (London Musici/Royal Albert Hall), Damien Hirst's Agongo and evenings of Weill and Birtwistle songs at BAC and the Almeida respectively.

Since 1998, he has worked as Associate Director - subsequently Producer - at the Almeida Theatre, producing for Almeida Opera 12 operas and music theatre events, with composers including Thomas Ades, Jonathan Dove, Param Vir, John Casken, Alexander Goehr, Guo Wenjing and Heiner Goebbels. During Patrick's time with the Almeida, the opera festival has expanded and co-produces with the Aldeburgh Festival, tours regularly in the UK and, this year, will visit La Monnaie, Brussels and the Alternative Lyrique festival at La Villette, Paris. He is pariticulary interested in the development of emerging artists and is a Visiting Lecturer in Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art.

Genista McIntosh
Former Executive Director,
Royal National Theatre

Genista (Jenny) McIntosh was educated at Hemel Hempstead Grammar School and the University of York. She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1972 as Casting Director, a post she held until 1977, when she became Planning Controller for the RSC.

In 1984 she left the RSC to become a Director of Marmont Management Limited, a theatrical agency, where she represented writers, directors and designers. In 1986 the RSC invited her to return as Senior Administrator and she was subsequently appointed Associate Producer before becoming Executive Director of the Royal National Theatre in October 1990.

Ms McIntosh was appointed to the position of Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House in January 1997. In May 1997, she resigned from the Royal Opera House and in the following October, returned to the National Theatre as Executive Director to work alongside Trevor Nunn, the National's Artistic Director.

She currently serves on the Boards of the Roundhouse Trust, NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and has recently joined the Board of the Welsh National Opera. She is also a member of the British Council Drama and Dance Advisory Committee and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In July 1998, Ms McIntosh was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of York and in June 1999 she was created a Life Peer taking the title of Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall.

Michael Morris
Director, Cultural Industry & Co-director, Artangel

Michael Morris was born in London in 1958. He studied English Literature at Oxford University and Arts Administration at City University, London, graduating in 1980.

In 1981, he began working in the Theatre Department of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London and was appointed the ICA's Director of Performing Arts in 1984. In the late 1980's, Morris expanded the ICA's policy to embrace one-off presentations at other venues in London (notably Laurie Anderson's epic United States at the Dominion Theatre and Jan Fabre's The Power of Theatrical Madness at the Royal Albert Hall) showing that innovation can flourish in mainstream settings as well as 'black box' studio theatres.

This lead naturally to the setting up of Cultural Industry in 1988 as an independent, international production company, presenting and producing new work across a complete spectrum of the performing arts.

Whether in theatre, music, dance or opera, Cultural Industry works with outstanding artists who break boundaries, blur form, and often defy categorisation, attracting the genuine fascination of press and public alike. Long term relationships have been forged with Robert Lepage, Pina Bausch, La La La Human Steps, Brian Eno, Robert Wilson and Laurie Anderson, amongst many others, in on-going partnerships with leading venues and festivals throughout Britain and beyond.

One area of active interest is the development of opera and music theatre. In co-production with The American Music Theatre Festival, Cultural Industry toured Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook his Wife For a Hat in both the US and Europe in 1988 and commissioned and produced Mike Westbrook's Coming Through Slaughter in 1994, adapted from books by Oliver Sacks and Michael Ondaatje respectively. The former has been screened as a film on Channel 4 and the latter was recorded for radio broadcast by the BBC. The latest addition to Cultural Industry's work in this field is the highly-successful 'junk opera' Shockheaded Peter directed and designed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch to the songs of cult London band The Tiger Lillies, currently making its way around the world and to be shot as a feature film in 2002.

Alongside James Lingwood, Michael Morris is also co-director of Artangel which commissions and produces unusual work by exceptional artists for particular places - both natural and architectural - throughout the UK.

Hear an interview with Michael Morris...

David Parry
Conductor

David Parry studied at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, London. He went on to study conducting with Sergiu Celibidache and began his career as a repetiteur at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, later becoming Chorus Master for the Touring Opera and assisting Sir John Pritchard both at Glyndebourne and at Belgian National Opera. He made his operatic debut with La Cenerentola for the English Music Theatre. He was on the conducting staff of the Dortmund City Opera, and then joined the newly-founded Opera North as a resident conductor. In 1983 he was appointed Music Director of Opera 80, a post he held until 1987, when he left to develop a freelance career.

He has regularly appeared as guest conductor for leading British companies such as Glyndebourne Festival Opera (where he gave the world premiere of Jonathan Dove's Flight), English National Opera, and Opera North.

His foreign opera productions include the Spanish premiere of Peter Grimes, The Rake's Progress and Jenufa (Teatro Lirico Nacional La Zarzuela Madrid), La Fille du Regiment, La Traviata and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Orviedo Festival and Carmen in San Sebastian.

His numerous opera recordings for Opera Rara and the series of classic repertoire in English for Chandos Records have been hailed by the critics, notably Rosomondo d'Inghilterra, L'Assedio di Calais and Il Crociato in Egitto for Opera Rara, and L'Elisir d'Amore, Rosenkavalier, La Bohome, Il Trovatore, Faust and Carmen, for Chandos, to name a few.

In 1992 he became Music Director of Almeida Opera, for whom he has given the world premieres of Nigel Osborne's Terrible Mouth, Kevin Volans's The Man who Strides the Wind, Elena Firsova's The Nightingale and the Rose and Ion by Param Vir. Other premieres he has given include Stephen Oliver's Mario and the Magician at the Batignano Festival (Italy) and the UK premiere of Bruno Maderna's Satiricon with Opera Factory.

David Parry regularly conducts leading orchestras in the UK and in Europe including the London Philharmonic, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Philharmonia, Netherlands Radio and Madrid symphony orchestras.

Future plans include the ongoing series of recordings both for Opera Rara and Chandos, productions for English National Opera, Staatsoper Hannover, Reisopera Holland, and concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Hear an interview with David Parry...

David Pountney
Director

David Pountney was born in Oxford and attended Radley College and Cambridge University, where he was Director of Productions for the Cambridge University Opera Society. He became internationally known through his production of Katya Kabanova at the 1972 Wexford Festival.

He has worked extensively with opera companies all over the world. While Director of Productions at Scottish Opera (1975-80) his productions included Die Meistersinger, Eugene Onegin and a Janacek cycle in collaboration with Welsh Nation Opera. As director of English National Opera (1982-1993) he created over 20 productions including the world premieres of Robin Holloway's Clarissa and Jonathan Harvey's Inquest of Love.

He has also worked extensively with the Netherlands Opera where he has produced The Gambler, The Rake's Progress, the world premiere of Philip Glass's Salyagraha, The Queen of Spades and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

Recent productions have included a joint production between the Bregenz Festival and Covent Garden of Martinu's Greek Passion and Le Coq d'Or at the Bregenz Festival, Nabucco at ENO, La Clemenza di Tito in Strasbourg, Cheryomushku for Opera North, Macbeth in Zurich and Street Scene in Chicago. Future engagements include productions of Jenufa in Vienna, Anything Goes at Grange Park and Turandot at the Salzburg Festival.

David Pountney was awarded a CBE and a Chevalier in the French Order des Arts et Lettres in 1993.

Hear an interview with David Pountney...

Jonathan Reekie
Chief Executive of Aldeburgh Productions

Jonathan Reekie began his career, whilst still a student, working for Musica Nel Chiostro, Batignano, of which he is still a board director. He was then Company Co-ordinator at Glyndebourne from 1988 to 1991.

Following his move to be General Manager of the Almeida Theatre, he founded Almeida Opera in 1992, an annual season of contemporary opera. As the Director of Almeida Opera, he was responsible for producing nearly 30 new operatic works.

In 1998 he was appointed Chief Executive of Aldeburgh Productions, responsible for a series of music festivals including the Aldeburgh Festival, the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies and the management of Snape Concert Hall. He also remained Director of Almeida Opera, which regularly collaborates with the Aldeburgh Festival. Recent Almeida Aldeburgh productions have included Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès and Ion by Param Vir.

He is a trustee of the Arts Foundation and devised the structure of The Genesis Prizes for Opera with Patrick Dickie.

Hear an interview with Jonathan Reekie...

Vikram Seth
Writer

Vikram Seth was born in Calcutta in 1952. The son of a shoe company executive and a judge, Seth left India to study at Oxford where he earned his degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). He also studied creative writing at Stanford University in the United States and classical Chinese poetry at Nanjing University, China.

Since he was first published in 1980, Seth has produced six books of poetry and three novels. His first novel, "The Golden Gate," is written entirely in tetrameter sonnets and follows young San Francisco professionals in their quest to find love. "A Suitable Boy," his prose fiction debut, was an epic tale of India in the tradition of George Eliot and Leo Tolstoy.

"A Suitable Boy" sold over one million copies and holds the distinction of being the longest single volume ever published in English. Eugene Robinson, a literary critic for the Washington Post remarked, "I have little doubt that...Vikram Seth is already the best writer of his generation." His next novel, "An Equal Music", was also a best seller.

In addition to his literary achievements, he was commissioned by the English National Opera to write a libretto based on the Greek legend of 'Arion and the Dolphin'. Arion and the Dolphin was commissioned by the Baylis Programme at the English National Opera in June 1994. The composer was Alec Roth. It tells the story of Arion, a young musician at the court of Periander in Corinth. Thrown overboard on his return from a musical contest in Sicily, Arion is saved and befriended by a dolphin.

Hear an interview with Vikram Seth...