The Flatpack Team:
Rebecca Lea: Artistic Director/ Deviser
Oliver-John Ruthven: Musical Director
Shaun May, Producer and Assistant Director
Catherine Backhouse - Performer
Jessica Clare Bridge - Performer
Tom Lane – Composer
Tom Lane was born in Bristol and studied Music at Balliol College Oxford. He completed a Masters degree in composition with Philip Cashian at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Tom’s works have been widely performed in concerts and workshops, including collaborations with the BBC Singers, the Arditti String Quartet, the Allegri Quartet, the Oxford Philomusica and the London Symphony Orchestra. Commissions have included those from the European-Youth-Music-Week Orchestra, The Royal Academy of Music and Lincoln College Choir, Oxford. Tom was selected for the LSO Panufnik Young Composers’ scheme to write a piece which was performed in a workshop given by the orchestra in October 2007.
Since October 2007 Tom has been studying Composition and Experimental Music Theatre with Daniel Ott at the University for the Arts in Berlin with a Hanseatic Scholarship from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung.
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Rebecca Lea: Artistic Director/ Deviser
Rebecca graduated from Queens College, Oxford, in 2008. She is currently completing an MA in Text and Performance at RADA. She also works as a freelance singer in London, appearing with the Rambert Dance Company, Oxford Camerata, New London Chamber Choir and the Early Music Experiment. Theatre and Opera Credits include: La voix humaine (Metta Theatre, Riverside Studios, London, April 2008), The Elephant’s Child (Trafalgar Studios), Acis and Galatea and The Birds.
Rebecca is currently Assistant Director of The Opera Scenes at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Future projects with Mammoth Music Theatre include a new project, entitled 'Shamed', which focuses in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in British Soldiers, which will premiere in August. She begins a postgraduate vocal study at the Royal Northern College of Music in September.
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Oliver-John Ruthven: Musical Director
Oliver-John graduated with a first class honours degree in Music from the University of Manchester, and has been living and working since then as a conductor in London. He is Musical Director of Hampstead Garden Opera Company (L’Elisir d’Amore – November 2008, Susannah – April/May 2009) and founder director of the Oriana Ensemble, a London based chamber orchestra set up in 2006.
Oliver-John has worked as cover conductor for the Royal Ballet (The Dream – May/June 2008) and as acting director of the Halle Youth Choir (January – April 2008). He is also Associate Music Director of Nimbus Theatre Company.
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Shaun May, Producer and Assistant Director
Shaun graduated from the University of Kent with a first class degree in Drama and Philosophy and is currently studying for an MA in Text and Performance Studies taught jointly between RADA and King's College London. Shaun is the Artistic Director of Square Moon, with which he most recently directed and produced a site-specific piece at a Jazz Bar in Canterbury. The company are currently working on a new play, Optimism, which is due to be performed at the Roundhouse in August.
As a performer his credits include The Dummies Company's Trouble (Liberties Bar), A Perfect Likeness (Hampstead Theatre), The Seagull (Lumley Studio, Kent), Endgame (Headgate Theatre, Colchester), Teechers (Headgate Theatre, Colchester), Oliver! (West Cliff Theatre, Clacton-on-Sea), One for the Road (Headgate Theatre, Colchester) and a short film, Newspeak.
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Catherine Backhouse - Performer
Catherine Backhouse grew up in Edinburgh and received her early vocal training as a chorister at St Mary’s Cathedral. In July 2003 she graduated with an hon ours degree in music from Durham University. She now lives in London where she is a full-time member of the a cappella ensemble Voces8, with whom she spends most of her time giving concerts around the world (highlights this year being America, The Canary Islands, Kenya) and leading education workshops.
Catherine is finishing singing with Voces8 this September in order to continue her combined opera and solo training. She is a member of the choir of
St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square and has singing lessons with Nick Powell.
Future concert details may be found on www.catherinebackhouse.co.uk.
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Lina Pettersson - performer
Lina began her dance training in Sweden and continued her studies at Laban, London. After she finished, she remained London-based & has taken part in various projects, ranging from baroque dance, short films to installations.
Lina regularly performs with ‘The Rare Theatricall’, an ensemble mixing opera, music, acting and dance, which gave her a special interest in collaborative projects with different forms of expression.
She has recently worked with Cloud Dance and is continuously exploring other dance projects including two solo choreographies which premiered in London.
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Matthew Kellett - Performer
Matt Kellett is a bass-baritone currently in his third year at Trinity College of Music studying singing under David Thomas. As well as performing with many of the colleges vocal groups he is also a choral scholar at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich. In the college operas Matt has appeared as Trulove in The Rake’s Progress and will appear as Polidarte in Handel’s Giustino.
Performances outside of Trinity include: Giuseppe in The Gondoliers, Christus in St. John Passion, George Jones in Street Scene, Perchick in Fiddler On The Roof and as the Bass soloist in the Fauré Requiem, Haydn Seven Last Words and Bernstein Chichester Psalms.
Matt’s future performances will include Dr. Gregg in Douglas Moore’s four person opera Gallantry: a soap opera.
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Jessica Clare Bridge - Performer
Jessica Clare Bridge, co founder of the “Rare Theatricall”, trained at the Paris Conservatoire in classical dance and gesture under Cecilia, Gracio-Moura and continued her training in Los Angeles with Catherine Turocy, director of the New York Baroque Dance Company.
Professional dance and choreographic credits include many baroque operas and dance concerts, throughout Europe and Pablo Bronstein’s installation entitled “Plaza Minuet” for the Tate Britain’s Triennial Exhibition 2006 London, which she co-created and performed in.
She was Assistant Director for “the Tales from the Brothers Grimm.” And has Acted in “the Passion” adulteress – Creation Theatre. Other roles include Rosalind “ As You Like It”- The Guild, Gretel – “….Into The Woods” - Cordey House, Shoreditch, Rosaline “Loves Labours Lost” – The Players.
Jessica also teaches baroque dance and gesture at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She loves performing as part of multi disciplinary theatre troupes particularly when it is site specific.
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Taylor Ott - Performer
Taylor Ott is an American soprano studying at Trinity College of Music in London, under the tutelage of Wendy Eathorne and Helen Yorke. In July and September 2008 Taylor played Mrs. Fiorentino in the American opera Street Scene.
Taylor has also work shopped and premiered two musicals in Seattle; Kaleidoscope Eyes: songs for Busby Berkeley with composer Chris Jeffries and Savage Asia with the up and coming composer, Tyler Alden.
Taylor studied for two years at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts and played The Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas. She will be performing as Lola in Douglas Moore’s four person Gallantry: a soap opera at the end of May.
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Zachary Roberts - Performer
Zachary Roberts is an American tenor from Washington, D.C. currently studying at Trinity College of Music under John Wakefield and Peter Woollard.
He was a cantor at the Church of the Annunciation in Washington DC and has worked professionally in other churches and synagogues in both America and Europe.
Last summer he performed as Mr. Buchanan in "Weill's Street Scene" under O-J Ruthven and Rebecca Dale
Future plans include Little Bat in Carlisle Floyd's "Susannah" with Hampstead Garden Opera, and premiering the part of Mickey in Jacko's Hour with Opera Engine.
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Alexis Bennett - Viola
Alexis Bennett is a viola player, composer, ceilidh musician and music teacher.
He studied music, English literature and history at the University of Edinburgh and then screen composition at the Royal College of Music with Dario Marianelli. He is currently studying Historical Performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As a composer he has collaborated with countless filmmakers and animators and his film projects have been selected for festivals including Cannes, London and Edinburgh. His music has been broadcast on Radio 3, Channel 4 and TCM.
He is a familiar face on the ceilidh scene in London, playing and calling for five years with a successful group and currently with a new band, The Ceilidh Factory.
Alexis also recently formed The Early Music Experiment, a collective of baroque and medieval musicians who also like messing around with laptops.
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Carina Drury - Cellist
Carina Drury was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in 2003 where she completed a Bmus(hons), studying with Philip Sheppard, and a PgDip on baroque cello with Jonathan Manson. Whilst at the RAM, Carina won the prestigious Nancy Nutall Early Music Prize, and sat as principal with the Royal Academy of Music Symphony, Opera, Media and Baroque orchestras.
For two years running Carina has been awarded a residency at Cheltenham Music Festival Academy, where she has performed alongside Tim Gill under the baton of Martyn Brabbins.
She has always had an interest in diverse cello repertoire and has participated in improvisation/jazz cello workshops with Philip Sheppard and Ernst Reijseger. She is a member of ‘Sunharbour’, a 14 piece ambient jazz musical collective, with whom she has performed at the Virgin Media Awards and recorded at Abbey Road. She is also involved in an improvisational Opera project with the Elastic Theatre Company.
Carina is a participant on the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Experience Scheme for talented young players, and has concerts with the orchestra at the Southbank Centre this year.
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Fergus Rougier: Accordion
Fergus Rougier is a multi-disciplinary performing artist and Cabaretist. He creates theatrical shows that inter-weave music, movement and text as well as performing a satirical musical cabaret - accompanied by an accordion.
It is as an accordion player that he is delighted to be involved with Flatpack.
Nichola Blakey - Viola
Nichola grew up in Manchester before coming to London to study viola at the Royal Academy of Music with James Sleigh, graduating with a first class BMus degree in 2007. She also pursued Baroque viola as a second study with Jane Rogers.
Since then Nichola has been freelancing in London and around the country, and has been played with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Opera North. On her Baroque viola she has played with Ex Cathedra, Orchestra of the Baroque and recorded the Messiah with the Dunedin Consort.
As well as the regular classical work, Nichola also enjoys a more alternative viola career, working with various bands, including the Early Music Experiment and also miming for Alesha Dixon on the BBC New Year's Eve party.
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Some of the Team
