Our People

Trustees & Officers

Founding Trustees

Rodney Slatford, OBE (Chairman) [See Below]
Jennifer Hamilton (2014-) [See Below]
Alison Randall (2013-) Hon. Treasurer
Carol Jennings (2017-)
Adam Johnson (2017-) [See Below]

Former Trustees

Christopher Ahrens (1998-2009) (Honorary Treasurer 2005-2009)
Isobel Craxton (1990-2000)
Stephen Day (2009-2012) (Honorary Treasurer)
Pauline Del Mar (1994-1995)
Tom Faire (2006-2013)
Rowena Feilding (1997-2008)
Lynette Garland (1993-1995)
Laurence Heyworth (2000-2007)
Graham Merriam (1993-1999) (Honorary Treasurer 1993-2000, 2004-2005)
John Williams (2009-2013)
Kate Woodhead (1993-2000)
Serena Woolf (1999-2004)

Rodney Slatford
Robert Clinton (1984-1990)
Meredith Davies (1984-1989)
David Holmes (1984-1993)

Officers

Director of Opera: Jennifer Hamilton
Administrative Assistant: Susan Cutler
Bookkeeper: Alex Abery AICB CB.Cert PM.Dip
Website: Niall Kinsella

Artistic Staff

Rodney Slatford, OBE, FRNCM, Hon.RCM (chairman)

Rodney Slatford is the founding Chairman of the Yorke Trust. He enjoys an unparalleled reputation as a former double bass player and teacher. Touring the world extensively as a lecture-recitalist, he gave over 1000 performances. As a founder member of the Nash Ensemble of London he played with the ensemble for thirty years, recording and broadcasting all the mainstream chamber music with them. With the English Chamber Orchestra, as co-principal bassist for 10 years, he worked with most of the world’s great soloists of the day. He recorded one of the first solo discs by a British bass player, with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, with whom he also played principal for some years. His mission to raise standards of double bass playing led to the world’s first Isle of Man International Double Bass Competition and Workshop in 1978 which he founded and directed.

Jennifer Hamilton (director)

Jennifer comes from the far North of Scotland and studied singing at the Royal Northern College of Music Manchester. After graduating, she continued her vocal studies with Robert Alderson and subsequently joined Opera North.
Following this, she taught at the Royal College of Music London, then at the RNCM Department of Vocal and Opera Studies, latterly becoming a full-time Senior Lecturer. There she directed operas for the college, the most notable being Handel’s Tamerlano which won the prestigious Manchester Evening News Award and Mark Anthony Turnage’s Greek which has since been publicly acknowledged by the composer as his favourite reading of the piece. Other productions for the RNCM include James Macmillan’s Busqueda which, in association with the composer, was realised as a Stage Production. As a performer and director, she has also had the privilege of working with Gian Carlo Menotti and Hans Werner Henze.
Later she also joined the staff at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire in Glasgow, and was a vocal teacher in the Music Department at Manchester University. Since the inception of The Yorke Trust opera productions over twenty years ago, she has been artistic director of these projects and has over directed twenty operas, including two special commissions.
In 2009 she became a full time member of the teaching staff at DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in Dublin where she subsequently became Undergraduate Programme Coordinator and in 2015 - 16 Acting Head of Department of Vocal, Opera and Drama Studies. During that time, she developed the performance skill training in the college and in June 2017 returned to the UK to take up her current post of Head of Vocal Studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Adam Johnson (music director)

Adam Johnson is one of the most versatile and exciting young musicians to have founded his own orchestra in recent years. The Ńorthern Lights Symphony Ørchestra, of which he is both Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, has attracted the attention of concert-goers in London since its formation in 2007 ('Thrilling' Classical Source, 2011). Unique among the outstanding artists of his generation, Johnson is as equally at home conducting opera as he is fulfilling the role of soloist in concerto repertoire, playing chamber music, or directing his own large-scale compositions. Adam began his International Conducting career aged 16 at the Glinka Accademia, St. Petersburg, and has subsequently appeared as Principal Conductor of Elemental Opera, RNCM Opera, and as Guest Conductor of Southbank Sinfonia, Suffolk Sinfonia, Oxford University Symphony Orchestra.

Winner of the Ricordi Operatic Conducting Prize whilst still studying under Sir Mark Elder CBE, Adam Johnson was invited to assist Ari Benjamin Meyers on his multi- media contemporary theatre work Il tempo di Postino as part of the Manchester International Festival. His outstanding contribution to the production led the following year to associate conductorship of the London premiere of Jonathan Dove's opera Flight with British Youth Opera under Nicholas Cleobury. His subsequent operatic successes have included direction of Karol Szymanowski's rarely performed Król Roger and Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia for Elemental Opera, a young innovative touring company with whom he enjoys an ongoing partnership.

Alexander Crowe (Easter course director)

Alexander was born in Edinburgh. After attending the Edinburgh Academy he went up in 1966 to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, as Organ Scholar. He remained at Cambridge as a Research Student until 1973, spending nine months as a Finnish Ministry of Education student at the University of Helsinki, carrying out work on the early unpublished works of Sibelius. In 1973 he became Solo-Repetiteur at the Lower Saxony State opera at Hanover, assuming overall responsibility for the on-stage bands there and becoming Head of Music Staff a year later. He joined the Opera Department of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in 1981 and became Head of the School of Vocal & Opera Studies in 2001. Since retiring this year he continues to enjoy an active free-lance life outside the College, as Organist & Choirmaster at Altrincham Parish Church, as an accompanist for various choral societies in North Cheshire, and he has been appointed an external examiner at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.

The Yorke Trust | UK Charitable Incorporated Organisation No. 1158927 | Phone: +44 1328 823501