His television work includes Doctors and Intergalactic Kitchen. Film work includes Muppets Most Wanted and Brief Intermission.
His radio work includes Romeo and Juliet and other work for BBC Radio 4 including extracts for BBC Natural Histories.
JOSHUA MILES
Joshua trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
His theatre work includes Fuse, Romeo and Juliet, The History Boys (Sheffield Theatres), The Sisterhood (Belgrade Coventry), Primetime (Royal Court, London), How I Learned To Drive (Southwark Playhouse), Stink Foot (The Yard), Unidentified Item In The Bagging Area (Old Red Lion), All The Ways To Say Goodbye (Young Vic), Hansel and Gretel (Dukes Lancaster), Pages From My Songbook (Manchester Royal Exchange), The Way Of The World (Chichester Festival Theatre) and Bully Boy (St James London/Royal and Derngate, Northampton/Nuffield, Southampton).
His television credits include Jigsaw, Vicious, Preston Passion, Doctors, Holby City, The Royal and Waterloo Road.
JIMMY WALKER
Jimmy trained at East 15 Acting School.
His theatre work includes League of St George (Pleasance Theatre).
His television work includes Endeavour and Call the Midwife.
MUSICIANS
JONATHAN GILL
Musical Director/Piano
Jonathan studied with William Mathias at the University College of North Wales and with James Lockhart at the Royal College of Music.
His recent work as a Musical Director includes The Lion King (UK tour/Musical Theater, Basel), The Sound of Music (Amman Festival, Jordan/Cairo, Egypt), Oliver (Sheffield Crucible), Legacy Falls (Pearl Theatre, New York), Gone Fishing (Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House) and he was Music Director/Arranger for Charlotte’s Web (Derby Theatre). He was Musical Director on The Go-Between (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Derby/Northampton) which won the UK Theatre Award for Best Musical Production 2012 and also on Follies (Northampton) and The Wizard of Oz (Royal Festival Hall). Jonathan conducted 600 performances of The Sound of Music on its UK and Irish tour, starring Connie Fisher.
Jonathan has given premieres of pieces by Jonathan Dove, Richard Taylor, Phillip Cassian, Ian McQueen and Matthew King’s On London Fields (Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award 2005) and Odyssean Variations with cellist Natalie Clein (St Luke’s).
ROBERT IRVINE
Cello (Red Note Ensemble)
Robert studied with some of the finest cellists in the world and has held principal positions in the Philharmonia, Scottish Opera and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He was a founding member of the Brindisi Quartet, the Chamber Group of Scotland, the Da Vinci Trio and is currently Artistic Co-Director of Red Note Ensemble.
Robert has recorded extensively including Complete Cello Works of Sally Beamish, Cello Works of Giles Swayne, ‘Tree o’ licht’ Solo Cello Works by William Sweeney, Rachmaninov/Shostakovich: Sonatas For Cello And Piano with Graeme McNaught on piano, The Cellist of Sarajevo by David Wilde. His new album Songs and Lullabies will be released in September and features 19 new solo cello works and all proceeds will go to UNICEF.
Robert is a Senior Professor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He plays on a fine cello, a copy of a 1695 Rugeri made in 2014 by Melvyn Goldsmith and a fine bow by the Scottish maker Howard Green.
JACKIE SHAVE
Violin (Red Note Ensemble)
Jackie trained at the Royal Academy of Music and the Britten-Pears School in Snape.
On leaving the Academy she became Leader of English Touring Opera, but soon made the decision to dedicate herself to chamber music, leading the Schubert Ensemble and then co-founding and leading the Brindisi Quartet for fifteen years.
She has appeared as guest leader with many groups including the Nash Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Composers’ Ensemble, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. She was appointed leader of Britten Sinfonia in 2005 and in 2013 she became leader of the Red Note Ensemble.
She has also recorded music in other styles including Postcards from Home, a world/jazz album in collaboration with Kuljit Bhamra (tabla) and John Parricelli (guitar). She has presented a complete Beethoven string quartet cycle on the Hebridean island of Harris, and gave a free improvisation concert in a cave on Hestur, in the North Atlantic Faroe Islands.
Jackie plays on a Nicola Amati violin, from 1672.
CREATIVE TEAM
OLIVER EMANUEL
Writer
Oliver is an internationally award-winning playwright based in Glasgow.
His previous work for the National Theatre of Scotland includes Dragon (with Vox Motus and Tianjin People’s Arts Theatre) and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. Dragon won Best Show for Children and Young People at the UK Theatre Awards 2014 and was the first play for young people to be performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2015. His English version of Titus won the People’s Choice Victor Award at IPAY 2015. He is a lead writer on Emile Zola: Blood, Sex & Money starring Glenda Jackson for BBC Radio 4. Other recent work includes Prom (Òran Mór/Traverse/Lemon Tree), A History of Paper (BBC Radio 4) and The Lost Things (Tortoise in a Nutshell). Oliver was writer in residence for BBC Radio 4 in 2010 and is a part-time Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews.
GARETH WILLIAMS
Composer
Gareth is a Chancellor’s Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art. His work seeks to find new participants, collaborators and audiences for new opera and music theatre.
In 2015 he created Fields of Light for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, commissioned by BBC Radio 3, Let The Dancing Out for the Maxwell Quartet and he composed, and conducted the premiere of Hirda, a new opera he created for NOISE, in collaboration with Shetland fiddler Christopher Stout.
Gareth was Composer in Residence at Scottish Opera from 2011 to 2014. His work there includes Elephant Angel (with libretto by Bernard McLaverty) which toured Scotland and Northern Ireland in 2012 and Last One Out (with libretto by Johnny McKnight) which premiered at the Sound Festival in 2012 in Fraserburgh Lighthouse. His project Breath Cycle, with Gartnavel Royal Hospital, supported by the Wellcome Trust, where he wrote songs and opera specifically for patients with Cystic Fibrosis was shortlisted for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
In May 2016, Rocking Horse Winner, a chamber opera (with libretto by Anna Chatterton), will be premiered by Tapestry New Opera in Toronto.
LAURIE SANSOM
Director
Laurie is the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the National Theatre of Scotland. He joined the Company in 2013 and as well as directing The James Plays trilogy, which has now played across the world, he directed and adapted The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark in 2015.
From 2006 he was Artistic Director of Royal and Derngate, Northampton, and Associate Director to Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough from 2002 to 2006, where he directed over 20 plays. He was an