Team
Introducing our team...
Cambridge Handel Opera Company (CHOC) is extremely fortunate to have a gifted and devoted team to manage the company, as well as a wonderful team of trustees and associated supporters. Meet some of them here.
Julian Perkins
Photo: Andy Craggs
As Artistic Director of CHOC, Julian Perkins values co-creating staged productions of operas by Handel and his contemporaries that aim for a meaningful integrity between what happens in the music and on stage.
Based in the UK, Julian is also the new Artistic Director of the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Oregon, USA. Elsewhere, he has performed at the Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh International Festival and BBC Proms, directed the Academy of Ancient Music and conducted opera productions for organizations including Bampton Classical Opera, Buxton International Festival, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Kings Place, Netherlands Opera Academy, New Chamber Opera, New Kent Opera and Snape Maltings. He has performed as the solo harpsichordist or fortepianist in productions for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Welsh National Opera, among others, and assisted on numerous productions and worked with many leading period instrument ensembles and orchestras.
One of Julian’s longest associations is with the Southbank Sinfonia, for whom he conducts Baroque programmes at the Anghiari Festival in Italy. Their annual projects at the London Handel Festival see advanced string players learning about a wide range of Baroque music and performing it with Baroque bows and gut strings. This educational ethos infuses CHOC’s orchestra, where leading period instrumentalists from Sounds Baroque rehearse and perform alongside advanced students.
Phillippa Scammell
Phillippa trained as a singer at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music, working as a freelance soprano and singing teacher before moving fully into arts administration. Phillippa has enjoyed a range of roles with organisations including BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Intermusica Artists’ Management, the Menuhin and BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competitions, and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she was the Vocal Department Coordinator.
A lover of opera, she is a trustee for Music Theatre Wales, and her hobbies and interests in addition to music include travel, food, swimming, and learning Italian.
Amy Klohr
Amy came to Clare College, Cambridge, in 1975 on a two-year Mellon Fellowship from Yale in the field of early music performance practice. Following a postgraduate opera course at the Royal Academy of Music, she returned to Cambridge. She has been teaching singing here ever since, at many colleges and as Head of Classical Voice at Anglia Ruskin University. She is an Associate Tutor and Senior Member at Hughes Hall, where she also directs the college choir. She is currently working on a PhD in vocal pedagogy at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
Amy serves on the Board of Trustees for Cambridge Youth Opera and the Executive Committee of the Cambridge Summer Music Festival. Her engagement with CHOC began as an Ambassador in 2018, and she subsequently joined the Board of Trustees.
Heather Swain
A graduate in French and Spanish, Heather Swain lives in Dulwich and is a keen amateur singer with choirs that perform in the principal London venues and regularly tour in Europe. Her varied educational and business roles have ranged from ownership of the Dulwich First Steps Montessori Day Nursery, of which she was Principal, to joint ownership and directorship of Le Chardon Brasserie Ltd.
A keen supporter of CHOC, Heather believes in the importance of the transformative ability of music education at all stages in life.
CHOC Board and Trustees
Seth Williams
Chair
A graduate in French and Spanish, Heather Swain lives in Dulwich and is a keen amateur singer with choirs that perform in the principal London venues and regularly tour in Europe. Her varied educational and business roles have ranged from ownership of the Dulwich First Steps Montessori Day Nursery, of which she was Principal, to joint ownership and directorship of Le Chardon Brasserie Ltd.
Professor Peter Holman MBE
Vice Chair
A graduate in French and Spanish, Heather Swain lives in Dulwich and is a keen amateur singer with choirs that perform in the principal London venues and regularly tour in Europe. Her varied educational and business roles have ranged from ownership of the Dulwich First Steps Montessori Day Nursery, of which she was Principal, to joint ownership and directorship of Le Chardon Brasserie Ltd.
Liam Findlay
Treasurer
A graduate in French and Spanish, Heather Swain lives in Dulwich and is a keen amateur singer with choirs that perform in the principal London venues and regularly tour in Europe. Her varied educational and business roles have ranged from ownership of the Dulwich First Steps Montessori Day Nursery, of which she was Principal, to joint ownership and directorship of Le Chardon Brasserie Ltd.
