Yara El-Sherbini and Davina Drummond create art with a focus on engagement and participation. Using familiar formats such as jokes, mini golf, choirs and tattoo parlours, they root their works in the everyday. Their work has been shown at Tate, Venice Biennale, Manchester Art Gallery, Baltic, IKON, National Portrait Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Modern Art Oxford, The RCA, Arnolfini, National Maritime Museum, and the ICA. They are currently working on Kick Off a project with the National Trust that explores women’s football.
Jonathan Reekie began his career at Glyndebourne Opera and then went to be General Manager at the Almeida Theatre, founding Almeida Opera. In 1997 he took over as Chief Executive of Aldeburgh Music where he remained until 2014, a transformational period for the organization culminating in the Britten Centenary celebrations. He was responsible for many highlights including Grimes on the Beach and over his career has commissioned over 40 new operas including Thomas Ades’ Powder Her Face. He co-edited The New Aldeburgh Anthology, a celebration of the Suffolk Coast and its musical life.
In 2014 he became Director of Somerset House Trust and has turned it into London’s working arts centre with an acclaimed cultural programme and offering a home to the city’s largest creative community. In 2019 he co-curated the exhibition 24/7 – wake up call to a non-stop world.
He’s also previously been a trustee to Musica nel Chiostro Batignano, an arts adviser to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and is currently a trustee of the Arts Foundation.
He has an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of East Anglia, is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and in 2013 was awarded a CBE for services to music.
