Meet the Team
Richard Harker is musical director of The Hythe Singers, Hampton Choral Society, the Wallace Singers, Teatime Opera and APP Singers (Parkinson’s). He is a chorus master for Opera Holland Park, and assistant conductor of St John of Jerusalem Festival Chorus and Dulwich Chamber Choir. Richard leads workplace choirs for Jones Lang Lasalle and The Place, runs youth choirs for Northbridge House Prep School in Camden and is one of the artistic directors of the Voices of London Festival. In summer 2016 Richard conducted Terterian’s Fire Ring at the Grimeborn Festival for London Armenian Opera. Richard graduated with an MA in Choral Conducting from the Royal Academy of Music, receiving the Thomas Armstrong Prize. He read music at, and was organ scholar of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he received the Swinburne Prize. Current projects include an opera based on Schumann’s song cycles entitled Unknowing and Menotti’s The Telephone with Teatime Opera, and Don Giovanni at Opera Holland Park.
Matthew Monaghan is an opera and theatre director. After graduating with a First from Oxford he studied on the prestigious MA in Theatre Directing at RADA, graduating with Distinction. Opera Directing credits include Trial by Jury (ENO Studio live 2017), Unknowing (Teatime Opera 2015/16), Passion and ResurrectionN (Voices of London Festival 2014), Viagron and Kettlehead (Grimeborn and Tete a Tete 2013). He was recently a finalist in the 2016 European Opera Directing Prize, for his conception of La Traviata. Theatre Directing credits include No One Sees The Video (RADA 2015), The Two Noble KinsmenN (Brockley Jack 2012), and Penetrator (RADA 2012). He was the dramaturg for Kemal Yusuf's CAIN (Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2016). Assistant directing credits include The Tempest (Norfolk and Norwich Festival, 2016), and Have I none (Lyric Hammersmith, 2012). Staff directing credits include Jenufa (2016), NORMA (2016), The Queen of Spades (2015) and Rigoletto (2014), for English National Opera, and La Vida Breve/Gianni Schicchi (2015) and Der Rosenkavalier (2016) for Opera North.
Christine Cunnold is a young lyric soprano who has trained with the English National Opera as an artist on their acclaimed Opera Works training programme. After reading Geography at King’s College London, Christine went on to take a Foundation in Acting (City Lit) and postgraduate vocal studies at Trinity College of Music, where she held a Trust Scholarship. Recent operatic experience includes a Lehrbuben in ENO's award winning production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Peter Grimes, Fidelio, Otello (ENO) and Die Zauberflöte (Aix en Provence Festival). Christine’s operatic roles include Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw (Moon-Little Theatre), Lauretta Gianni Schicchi (TCMO), originated roles in the operetta These Things Happen(Courtyard Theatre)and in a touring, fully-staged Messiah (Merry Opera), directed by John Ramster. As a soloist Christine recently performed Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Skipton Camerata and Dvorak's Stabat Mater with Durham Choral Society. As part of ENO’s Opera Works programme Christine was chosen to study the roles of Armida in Handel'sRinaldo, Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo Mozart and Poppea in Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea. At the Royal Opera House Christine has sung with the Royal Ballet in Carlos Acosta's version of Carmen.
David Jones, a prizewinner in the 2015 AESS Patricia Routledge English Song Competition, is equally at home in song, oratorio and opera. He has a particular interest in new music, and has given premieres of works by Nick Bicât, Stephen Deazley, Louis Mander and Josh Spear. Recent highlights have included Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte for the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, Sharpless in Madam Butterfly for the King's Head Theatre and touring the UK as part of Joshua Sofaer’s innovative Opera Helps project, which received significant media attention. He is a soloist on Yehudi Menuhin’s Live Music Now scheme. His recitals have included explorations of major song cycles by Finzi, Vaughan Williams and Schumann, alongside lesser-known works by Bliss and Sullivan, and he enjoys a fruitful ongoing collaboration with Cantata Dramatica, with whom he has given the first performances of four substantial works. He appeared as Ko-Ko in an acclaimed production of The Mikado with Co-Opera Co., in which "his deadpan sense of humour and immaculate timing proved irresistible" (Opera magazine) and his little list was "brilliantly delivered with hangdog deadpan" (Opera Now)