Staff A-Z

Heidi is a choreographer, dancer and curator. Since 2000, she has worked collaboratively as a choreographer and performer duo with Hanna Gillgren operating as H2DANCE, working between Norway, Sweden and the UK. In 2018, H2DANCE set up Fest en Fest, an international festival of expanded choreography.

[Trinity] Laban provided me with a solid foundation from which to launch my career and I am extremely grateful to all the staff, staff who are active industry professionals and pioneers within their fields. I fondly remember my experiences under the directorship of the late Dr Marion North.

Gidon Saks was born in Israel and brought up in South Africa. He began his studies there, then at the Royal Northern College of Music, the University of Toronto and at the International Opera Studio in Zürich.

Gidon was a member of the Ensemble at the Canadian Opera Company, and then in the opera houses of Gelsenkirchen and Bielefeld. He made his British debut with Scottish Opera as Claggart in Billy Budd, an opera he has sung in many productions and recorded both with the Halle (as Mr Flint) and the LSO, winning a Grammy Award.

He has sung every bass role in Wagner’s Ring, and his repertoire includes Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress and the title role in Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle. He has sung Kaspar in Weber’s Freischütz in English for ENO, German for the Staatsoper in Berlin, and in Berlioz’s French recitative version at the Opera Comique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, also performed at the Proms.

Alice Sara graduated from London Contemporary Dance School with a first class BA (Hons) degree and joined 4D (LCDS’s postgraduate performance company, now ‘Edge’) where she danced in work by Wayne McGregor, Richard Alston, Yael Flexer and Stephen Hughes, and went on to complete her MA in 2000. On graduating, she became a core member of ‘seven sisters group’, co-devising and performing in major projects in varied locations, including a forest, Selfridges, the Royal Opera House – Clore Studio, European mainline railway stations, and working as both performer and rehearsal director for Like a Fish Out of Water in seven sisters group’s partnership project with English National Ballet. She has also performed nationally and internationally in works by Deborah Hay, Tom Dale, Maresa Von Stockert, Andreja Rauch, and in film and multimedia projects with Deborah Tiso, including the channel 4/Big Dance film Big Sofa . She currently dances with Lizzi Kew Ross & Co, most recently performing Being There in St Paul’s Cathedral.

Adam has designed and led projects with some of the country’s leading organisations including the National Youth Orchestra, the Southbank Centre and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Adam thrives on large-scale collaborations; his latest musical, ‘Thames Tales’, was performed at the Royal Albert Hall, by a cast of over a thousand. Other recent projects include partnerships with the South African High Commission, the Tower of London and the New Wimbledon Theatre.

As a creative consultant, he has worked on numerous global advertising campaigns. In 2019, he was the musical director for Amazon’s holiday campaign, conducting a choir of workers from an Amazon fulfilment centre outside Paris.

In addition to being leader of the Orchestra of St. John’s, Jan is also Principal Second Violinist of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. He has worked as a guest leader of many orchestras in the UK, including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as well as the Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland. In the last two seasons, Jan has been invited several times to lead the Orchestre de chambre de Paris.

As leader of the Orchestra of St. John’s, Jan’s solo performances have included Bach’s violin concertos, all the Brandenburg concertos, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Violin Concerto No. 5, Bruch’s Concerto No. 1 and the concertos by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Jan has also given many performances of Vivaldi’s and Piazzolla’s Four Seasons, culminating in a live recording for the OSJ Alive label. Solo performances with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields have included the Schnittke’s Double Concerto at the Barbican Centre and a broadcast for French Radio of duo sonatas with Kenneth Sillito from the Chatelet, Paris.

Barak Schmool studied saxophone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. At the age of 20, illness prevented Barak from practising saxophone for six months which led to his picking up percussion, eventually specialising in West African drumming and Latin percussion. Since then Barak has worked with Artists such as Bosco De Oliveira, Nana Tsiboe, Robert Mitchell and Hilaire Penda, as well as a long association with Django Bates’ Big Band, Delightful Precipice.

Barak Schmool studied saxophone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. At the age of 20, illness prevented Barak from practising saxophone for six months which led to his picking up percussion, eventually specialising in West African drumming and Latin percussion. Since then Barak has worked with Artists such as Bosco De Oliveira, Nana Tsiboe, Robert Mitchell and Hilaire Penda, as well as a long association with Django Bates’ Big Band, Delightful Precipice.

Barak has also founded a number of different projects, each with unique stylistic and world influences. These include the Afro-rhythmic groupTimeline, the Cuban batá-fusion of Méta Méta, and the integrated dance performance of Synergy and Roots of Unity. Barak is also the founder of F-IRE (Fellowship for Integrated Rhythmic Expression); part record label and part educational initiative, encompassing a wide variety of genres within and beyond the scope of jazz. F-IRE was awarded the 2004 BBC Jazz Award for Innovation, and all of the musicians nominated in the ‘Rising Stars’ category were members of F-IRE.

Barak is also a regular teacher at the Royal Academy of Music and City University.

Stephanie studied Medicine at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Dance Theatre at Trinity Laban. A recipient of the Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award she founded Stephanie Schober & Dance Company in 2002 and became a resident dance artist at Southbank Centre in 2003.

Born in South Africa, Pieter made his solo debut aged 10 with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. He studied with Jack de Wet in South Africa, winning numerous competitions including the 1984 World Youth Concerto Competition in the USA. In 1987 he was offered the Heifetz Chair of Music scholarship to study with Eduard Schmieder in Los Angeles and in 1991 his talent was spotted by Pinchas Zukerman, who recommended that he move to New York to study with Sylvia Rosenberg. In 1994 he became her teaching assistant at Indiana University, Bloomington. Pieter has performed worldwide as a soloist and recitalist in such famous halls as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Moscow’s Rachmaninov Hall, Capella Hall in St Petersburg, Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Anneke Scott is a leading exponent of historical horn playing. Her work takes her throughout the globe and throughout the centuries of music with a repertoire incorporating music and instruments from the late seventeenth century through to the present day. 

Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell is a Reader of Choreographic Practice within the Faculty of Dance and Programme Leader for the MA/MFA Creative Practice at Trinity Laban. Naomi lectures across the BA and MA/MFA programmes within the fields of choreography, performance and research methods as well as supervises Practice as Research PhDs. Originally from Canada, Naomi’s background as a professional dancer includes work with both Butoh and Cunningham-influenced companies. Naomi holds a BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University and a MA Choreography and PhD in Creative Practice (Dance) from Trinity Laban. She is also a Higher Education Academy Fellow.

Research interests and areas of supervision:

• Creative practice
• Dance making
• Choreographic process
• Scoring, choreographic methodologies and documentation
• Mindful moving and attendance to presence

British conductor and composer Harry Sever studied at Oxford University and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music.

Recent and upcoming engagements include Carmen (Opera North), Fantasio (Garsington), La Traviata (Opera Holland Park), Cendrillon (Bampton Classical Opera), The Nutcracker (Peter Schaufuss Ballet), as well as concerts with Welsh National Opera and projects with The Royal Danish Opera, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and British Youth Opera.