Rachel Podger is one of the most creative talents to emerge in the field of period performance. Over the last two decades she has established herself as a leading interpreter of the music of the Baroque and Classical periods and holds numerous award-winning recordings to her name ranging from early seventeenth century music to Mozart.  I do the PR, website and communications for Rachel's annual Brecon Baroque Festival.

www.breconbaroquefestival.com

Buxton International Festival is one of the country’s most prestigious summer festivals. I have worked with this knock-out festival in the heart of Buxton for five years.

BIF celebrated an exceptional 2024 festival which far exceeded attendance expectations with sell-out events and accolades across the board including an International Opera Award nomination. On the back of this fantastic year, the Festival announces its plans for 2025 with four eagerly awaited operas, plus four new mini opera commissions, Shorts, 19 jazz events and 33 book talks.

Eric Whitacre is one of the most popular composers and performers of our time.  I launched him in the UK, alongside Universal Records, and his first album, Light & Gold, became the number one classical album in the UK and USA within a week as well as winning a Grammy Award and numerous five star reviews. Alongside his first album, Eric launched his first Virtual Choir project which received one million hits on YouTube in just two months (it's now three million). 

I worked with Eric again in Autumn 2019 for the European première of his major new choral work, The Sacred Veil.

I promoted I Fagiolini's masterpiece, The Full Monteverd - initially at Cheltenham Festival and then onwards as it was made into a film for Channel Four Television.  I was lucky enough to work with Robert Hollingworth and I Fagiolini in 2015 too on the group's new polyphonic crime drama, Betrayal.  It had far-reaching reviews in nearly every national newspaper as well as previews in the Telegraph, the Guardian and the FT as well as on London Live TV, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4.

Next up is the group’s 2019 project, ‘Shaping the Invisible’ for the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. We had a clean sweep for the project’s launch with national features across the broadsheets and all over national radio.

I worked as a consultant to BBC Radio 3's Classical Music and Television department to launch the station's Spirit of Schubert Season in 2012.  The station played non-stop Schubert for 200 hours over a period of eight days as well as staging concerts all over the country.  I launched the Season at 22 Mansfield Street, London W1 and placed features about the Season in every daily national newspaper including The Daily Mail, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian as well as on national radio and TV plus music and consumer magazines including BBC Music Magazine and the Radio Times.

On a project basis, I am helping Brodsky Quartet with some national press profile surrounding their 50th Birthday Celebrations.

2018 sees the 100th Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols at King’s College Cambridge and it was my happy job to tell the world. The project was a massive success with the album holding Number One spot for weeks on end.

I did the PR for The King's Singers 40th Anniversary - an unprecedented celebration which brought together members old and new at King's College in Cambridge.  I secured the group's only appearance (to date) on BBC Breakfast TV as well as countless features and interviews in daily national newspapers, music magazines and the local press in Cambridge.

I was thrilled to work with the group again for its 50th Anniversary in 2018 and had a clean sweep of cover features in the music magazines and on air with BBC Radio 3, 4 and on TV. 

In 2020, I worked with the group as part of their Finding Harmony initiative and #DigitalTour. At the end of last year I launched Christmas Carols with The King’s Singers 2021.

I was lucky enough to promote Elizabeth Kenny’s 2019 album and tour, Ars longa: Old and New Music for the Theorbo this summer. I achieved lots of lovely coverage for her on radio and in national publications including this incredible photograph in The Times, thank you to Richard Pohle.

Aled Jones and Russell Watson’s new album, Back in Harmony, is released by BMG on 1 November 2019.

Excited to be taking on my second Cheltenham Music Festival with Alison Balsom as the new artistic director.

The 2018 Cheltenham Music Festival brings the very best of classical music to the widest possible audience (30 June – 15 July). A star-studded line-up includes a Festival debut from Maxim Vengerov, András Schiff with the OAE, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Sarah Connolly, James Gilchrist, Mahan Esfahani, Steven Isserlis, Benjamin Grosvenor and The King’s Singers plus Sir Mark Elder and Louise Alder with The Hallé and Martyn Brabbins with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. 

The Festival marks the anniversaries of Leonard Bernstein, Claude Debussy and Hubert Parry as well as the world premières of Joseph Phibbs’ chamber opera, Juliana, a retelling of Hansel & Gretel by Matthew Kaner and Simon Armitage; four Quartet premières by the Ligeti Quartet; and Festival commissions from Gavin Higgins, Eddie Parker, Kenneth Hesketh and Richard Blackford. 

I worked with The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments for its wonderful 2014/2015 project, 'Nine Daies Wonder' which followed the antics of William Kemp who, in 1600, danced his way from London to Norwich in nine days entertaining an adoring public en route.  The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments, with dancer, Steven Player, celebrated Will Kemp's account of the journey, 'Nine Daies Wonder', with raucous dance tunes and more refined music of the Elizabethan Age. 

During 2016 and 2017, I worked with Clare Salaman for her 'Sound House' project which toured the UK. In 2020 and 2021 I worked with her on her Tromba Marina project which visited Brecon Baroque Festival in October 2021 for what was to be Clare’s last concert.

The newest professional vocal ensemble on the block, ORA, is a game-changer.  This incredible outfit, founded and conducted by Suzi Digby, and recorded by Harmonia Mundi promises 100 commissions over the next 10 years.

I am thrilled to be working with David Skinner and Alamire.  Our first project, The Spy's Choirbook, focused on an incredible book in The British Library that was gifted to Henry VIII  by scribe, composer and spy, Petrus Alamire in c 1515. David has brought the book back to life and his terrific CD with Obsidian Records launches in October 2014. My second project, Anne Boleyn's Songbook, was released with Obsidian in 2016 and to finish the trilogy, 2017 sees the recording of Thomas Tallis, Queen Katherine Parr and Songs of Reformation. And there’s more to come in 2019.

Patrick Hawes’ monumental new work, The Great War Symphony, was premièred at The Royal Albert Hall in October 2018 and at Carnegie Hall, New York on Armistice Day 2018. The PR was fantastic and included a brilliant feature on ITV’s Ten O Clock News.

Tenebrae celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2017 with a UK tour - based on Joby Talbot's Path of Miracles and a new work, Footsteps, commissioned by Owain Park. I was delighted to do the group's PR for that important year.

I am delighted to be working with Mid Wales Opera for its 25th Anniversary Year.  The company is staging two touring productions for 2014 - Handel's Acis & Galatea with Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque and Carmen directed by Dr Jonathan Miller.  What a year it has been for this fantastic company.

The "insanely talented" percussionist Joby Burgess tours with Pioneers of Percussion during 2016/17 and I am lucky enough to be PRing it.

Chetham's School of Music, the world's leading specialist music school, celebrated its new home in March 2012.  I launched the new building to the press and secured major features in The Times, The Daily Telegraph, BBC Music Magazine, Classical Music Magazine, Gramophone Magazine, Music Teacher Magazine, Brass Band World, International Piano Magazine, The Pianist, IAM Magazine, BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM.  I continue to work for this fantastic institution as the final stages of the development come together and as the school looks forward to a dazzling calendar of performances all over the UK.

Thomas Guthrie is a musician, director and actor. 

He's  just done the revival of Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

He's directing The Fairy Queen at Middle Temple Hall on 30 and 31 October. 

He directed 'Crowd Out', David Lang's 1000-strong piece at Spitalfields Music's Summer Festival 2014.

He is working with The London Taxi Company as part of The Workplace Choir Company's '12-Week Concert Programme' in readiness for a performance at Warwick Castle.

He is directing the Classical Opera Company's Adriano in Siria, Easter 2015.

He is directing a show to mark the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme in 2016, based on Purcell's King Arthur & David Jones' In Parenthesi.

Tom's Death Actually at Spitalfields Music's Summer Festival 2014 was described as "winningly intense" by The Evening Standard and "irresistible" by The Times. Tom himself was described as "hot news" by Opera Now.

Need I say more?  Lucky, lucky me.

I first worked on Brighton Early Music Festival in 2015 and I am thrilled to be working with the BREMF team for the fourth time this autumn for another terrific Brighton line-up.

Toby Spence is one of the world's finest tenors. He has sung with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, the Paris Opera, ENO, the Bavarian State Opera, the Teatro Real, Madrid, Theater an der Wien, the Hamburg Opera and at the Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence and Edinburgh festivals.

On the concert platform he works with Sir Simon Rattle, Andris Nelssons, Thomas Adés, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Symon Bychkov.

In 2013, Toby  launched Wardsbrook Concerts with his brother Magnus and friend, Edward Gardner. This exquisite series of concerts saw Stephane Degout, Sarah Connolly, Sir Thomas Allen and Christiane Karg give recitals in Magnus' Tudor barn. Toby was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Midweek and Radio 3's In Tune as we launched and a major feature appeared in The Daily Telegraph before the recital series opened in May 2013.  The project has been a resounding success and I am working with Toby and Wardsbrook in 2014 and 2015 as well.

Amati - the Marketplace for Stringed Instruments.  A remarkable online auction house selling the best to the best and everything in between.

True gypsy mayhem - I've been lucky enough to work with Red Priest for the first time this year (2018).

The irrepressible musicians of Red Priest - Piers Adams, Adam Summerhayes, Angela East and David Wright – perform their latest programmes, ‘Baroque Bohemians’ and ‘Handel in the Wind’ throughout 2018.

"Tipsily crazy", a highlight this year has been as one of the invited guests for BBC Radio 3's In Tune broadcast from The Wallace Collection.

I was a consultant to Wales Millennium Centre for its 5th birthday celebrations which included a performance of Act III of Wagner's Die Walküre with Bryn Terfel and the beginning of a three-year partnership with Mariinsky under the baton of Valery Gergiev.  A sensational gala weekend with press coverage across the board.

Dr Muirne Kate Dineen is the only woman in the world to practice the ancient art of Indian Araash.  I worked for Kate for five years publicising her sell-out exhibitions at the Robert Sandleson Gallery at No. 5 Cork Street.  Kate was featured in The Times Magazine, Vogue Magazine, Wallpaper, Blueprint, Time Out, The Independent on Sunday and on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Midweek. She is busy having a family now but I have no doubt I will work for her again.

A thrillng account to work on - The Big Draw is an annual drawing extravaganza which, at its peak, involved 1000 venues all over Britain. I worked on The Big Draw for five years and set up national newspaper sponsorship with both The Guardian and The Independent - each paper featured a special Big Draw pull-out as well as countless national newspaper features in every broadsheet and red top.  The press coverage knew no bounds - Blue Peter, BBC Radio 4's Today programme (regularly), the BBC Ten O Clock News, ITV News and Channel Four News plus major magazine features in Time Out, Junior Magazine, and on BBC Radio 2, 4 and 5.  The highlight for me was a live broadcast from Trafalgar Square  with the BBC when Rolf Harris recreated Constable's The Hay Wain in front of The National Gallery.

Harry Christophers asked me to launch The Sixteen's millennium project, a Choral Pilgrimage (inspiring Music in England's finest Cathedrals).  Numerous national features, magazine columns, appearances on BBC's Front Row and In Tune as well as Classic FM and many local radio stations resulted in the tour being an unqualified success so much so that the Choral Pilgrimage is now in its 12th year. Harry commented: "There are not many arts groups that can boast that level of work which was to a large effect generated by that initial amazing PR boost.” 

Antarctic explorer, Felicity Aston, led a group of ordinary women from eight Commonwealth countries to the South Pole in 2010.  I tracked the team on their extraordinary journey, via satellite phone, and reported to the world's press on their progress and their safe arrival at the South Pole. The culmination of press achievement saw the team appear on BBC Breakfast Television on Friday in London and Good Morning America In New York the following Monday with 8,500 press articles around the world in between. 

Geoffrey Burgon composed the music for Doctor Who in 1975 and 1976, and in 1979 scored a direct hit with his music for the BBC's television dramatisation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guinness as George Smiley. The closing Nunc Dimittis theme entered the UK charts, and he won his first Ivor Novello award.

In the next decade he wrote the theme music for the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian, and his TV work included Brideshead Revisited (1981) for Granada and The Chronicles of Narnia (1988) for the BBC. Brideshead went gold, selling more than 100,000 copies, and brought him another Ivor Novello award. He went on to win Bafta awards for best television music for Longitude (2000) and The Forsyte Saga (2002).

He produced a vast body of classical music, including works for full orchestra and for soloists, dance scores for the Royal Ballet, London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Ballet Rambert, and an opera based on Charles Dickens's Hard Times.

His first great classical success was his Requiem, premiered when the Three Choirs Festival was at Hereford in 1976, and described by the Times as "this year's most important new work". This was followed a year later by a piece based on a medieval Chester miracle play called The Fall of Lucifer.

In 1994 he wrote a concerto for the percussionist Evelyn Glennie, and three years later a piano concerto for Joanna MacGregor. But he was always passionate about the human voice, and integrated it into much of his output. The song cycle Merciless Beauty of 1997 was followed, three years later, by Heavenly Things. In 2003 came Three Mysteries, for soloists, choir and chamber orchestra. It is not surprising that so much of his choral work has become standard for cathedral choirs.

I was lucky enough to work for Geoffrey and achieved many fantastic features in the national press, on national radio and TV and in all the key music magazines.  My last job, very sadly, was to place Obituaries in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Times on his untimely death in 2010.

London-based photographer, Clive Barda, has carved an extraordinary career over the last 40 years photographing the biggest names in the classical music industry from Lord Yehudi Menuhin to Luciano Pavarotti.  I publicised Clive's book - his life's work in print - entitled Performance! as well as his permanent photographic exhibition at Wigmore Hall and exhibitions at Cheltenham and Edinburgh Festivals.

Gregynog Festival is the oldest classical music Festival in Wales.

Each year the Festival takes a different theme as the starting point for its curation. Gregynog Festival 2013 was curated on the theme of Great Britten to honour the centenary of the birth of Benjamin Britten and the composer’s appearance at Gregynog Festival 1972 with Peter Pears and Osian Ellis.

The 2013 Festival season – which gained a prestigious Britten Award from the Britten-Pears Foundation at Aldeburgh – brought together some of the finest artists in the world to interpret seven centuries of Great British music from Dowland and Purcell to composers who visited Gregynog such as Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst and Britten himself. The Festival also staged an autumn celebration in Cardiff to mark Britten's actual Centenary.

The 2014 theme, War, draws an arc between the English Civil War and First World War to highlight the experience of musicians in Wales and the Borders. It's am "ambitious programme" (Richard Morrison, The Times) with Jordi Savall, the Nash Ensemble, Christopher Maltman, The Brabant Ensemble, Alamire and BBC National Orchestra of Wales amongst its stars.

2015 is France, I believe.  Can't wait.

And 2020 was due to mark 100 years since the Davies sisters bought Gregynog Hall. Alas, not to be with Covid-19 forcing cancellation.

In May 2011, I launched Suzi Digby's brilliant charity, Vocal Futures, with a debate at The Cambridge Union Society.  Stephen Fry and The Daily Telegraph's chief classical music critic, Ivan Hewett, opposed the motion "This house believes classical music is irrelevant to today's young people" against BBC Radio One DJ Kissy Sell Out and American academic, Greg Sandow.  Stephen and Ivan won, Vocal Futures was launched and I got press coverage on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Breakfast Television, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Evening Standard, Time Out, Anglia TV, Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 as well as a million hits for the debate online.

Vocal Futures' first performance was Bach's St Matthew Passion in a disused concrete factory under the Marylebone Road with Sir Willard White and the OAE.  The performance was widely reviewed in the national press and previewed with major features in Time Out, Vogue, The Daily Telegraph and The Evening Standard as well as a cover feature in Classical Music Magazine.

Our latest project was Haydn's The Creation in December 2013, directed once again by Patrick Kinmonth which enjoyed impeccable reviews across the board.  The next project will be in 2016.

Eton College's Music Department wanted to introduce the general public to a new Music Scholarship for 11-year-olds. The school's brief was simple - to place features about the school in the daily national press. I set up four major features in The TES, The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph.