HGO People

HGO is the performing arm of the not-for-profit organization Hampstead Garden Opera Trust Ltd. The Trust is a registered charity (no. 1168484) and consists of a Board of Directors and Trust Members, all of whom give their services on a voluntary basis. The Trust has no employees or overhead expenses, and dedicates its entire income directly to its objectives of advancing young singers through the presentation of high-quality opera productions and associated activities.

We are fortunate to have as our co-presidents, Howard Williams and Emma Kirkby DBE. The directors of the company, who are also its charity trustees, are:

David Conway – Chairman
Alastair Macgeorge – Chairman Emeritus
Martin Musgrave – Deputy Chairman
Roger Sainsbury, Patricia Cabredo Hofherr
Linda Hirst, João Rufino

The members of the Executive Committee, who carry out the everyday work of the Trust, are:

David Conway, Alastair Macgeorge, Roger Sainsbury, Kathy Dallas, Philip Sheffield, Bill English and Don Hunter.

We are always glad to consider active new Members for the company who would be interested in working with us to support and develop our activities. Please email David at david.conway@hgo.org.uk if you may be interested in joining us.

David Conway - Chairman

David Conway is a music historian and has in previous incarnations been a management consultant, a local councillor, a clothing manufacturer, a stockbroker and an NHS non-executive director, some of these simultaneously. He is a mediocre pianist and a poor bassoonist. From 1992 until 2017 he worked as a senior expert for the British Government and the European Commission in development aid programmes in countries of the former Soviet Union. He is a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge and in 2008 received his PhD from University College London, where he is an Honorary Research Fellow. david.conway@hgo.org.uk

Alastair Macgeorge - Chairman Emeritus

Alastair Macgeorge - Chairman

Alastair Macgeorge worked for 40 years in the consumer movement – 28 years with Which? and, post-‘retirement’, supporting fledgling groups all over Eastern Europe and Central Asia from 1991 to 2003. These post-Soviet travels yielded a musical bonus in the shape of some truly memorable performances of rare operas in unlikely places. An early starter on the piano but never a great practiser, he infuriated his father, a gifted accompanist, by ‘strumming’ (i.e. playing what came into his four-year-old head). This led to a lifetime of music-making in many contexts – in domestic chamber music, accompanying singers and instrumentalists, and in composition – notably the score for Murder in the Cathedral in St. Michael’s, Highgate, in 1991, and a few songs, choral pieces and other small-scale works. He joined HGO on day one as its rehearsal pianist, and has been deeply involved with its development ever since, latterly as Chairman.