The Team

Fiona Stuart

Fiona is originally from Cheshire and was educated in Chester and Cambridge, where she was awarded a Choral Scholarship to St Catharine’s College. After college, Fiona worked as an Arts Producer for BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and BBC Radio Manchester. She then moved into teaching and until 2006 was Head of Music at Aquinas College in Stockport, directing musicals and orchestras, and developing Music into one of the largest A-level departments in the country, with 140 students. Her students twice achieved the best results of the top 50 colleges nationally.

For four years, Fiona was a member of the National Advisory Committee for Performing Arts and was one of the first Youth Arts Mentors for Manchester City Council. After teaching, she became Director of two arts festivals and also joined the Performance and Programming team at the RNCM. She is committed to opening up opportunities for young performers and is a Trustee of the Piccadilly Symphony Orchestra and Future Stages, two organisations dedicated to young artists. She is the co-founder of RNCM Young Company. Production credits include: West Side Story, Cabaret, On the Town, Singin’ in the Rain, Rent, The Wiz, Guys and Dolls, Kiss Me, Kate, The Threepenny Opera and Little Shop of Horrors.

Gregory Batsleer

Gregory Batsleer is widely regarded as one of the leading Choral Conductors and most innovative musicians of his generation. Gregory is Chorus Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Director of the Huddersfield Choral Society. Gregory has received widespread critical acclaim for his work in both raising musical standards as well as widening the artistic activities of each ensemble.

He has held the position of Chorus Director with the RSNO since 2015 and has in that time overseen an improvement in the overall standard of the RSNO Chorus, as well as a rise in the RSNO’s choral activity. This has included the inauguration of the RSNO Chorus Academy, Singing Days, and the establishment of regular Come and Sing events with the Orchestra.

As Guest Conductor; recent and forthcoming highlights include performances with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Hallé Orchestra, Black Dyke, National Youth Choir of Great Britain, Orchestra of Opera North, Manchester Camerata, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Academy of Ancient Music, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra; with whom he appears on a number of occasions throughout each season.

As Guest Chorus Master Gregory has worked with orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestra of Opera North, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Houston Symphony Orchestra, and works regularly with leading conductors including Sir Mark Elder, Robin Ticciati, Sir Andrew Davis, Thomas Søndergård, Vassily Petrenko, Sir Roger Norrington, Philippe Herreweghe, Maxim Emelyanychev and Emmanuel Krivine.

Gregory is deeply committed to extending the reach of classical music beyond the concert hall and exploring new ways of presenting music. Gregory is co-Artistic Director of Festival Voices, a professional vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance of choral music reimagined with live electronic music. In recent seasons Gregory has curated and conducted cross-art performances at Latitude Festival, Wilderness Festival, Southbank Centre, London Handel Festival and at the Royal Northern College of Music. Gregory has worked as an artistic advisor at the Sam Wannamaker Theatre and on various projects with leading contemporary artists such as Elbow, Damon Albarn, David Lang, Carlos Acosta, Clean Bandit, Guy Garvey and Joy Division.

From 2012 – 2016 Gregory was Artistic Director of the National Portrait Gallery’s Choir in Residence Programme, the first in-house music programme in a museum or Gallery in the world. Together with the Portrait Choir he recorded a much acclaimed Choral Audio Guide to the Gallery’s permanent collection.

Outside his work as a performer, Gregory is a director of innovative performing arts charity Future Stages and is sits on the boards of Manchester Camerata and Charades Theatre Company. In 2015 Gregory was awarded the first ever Arts Foundation Fellowship in Choral Conducting. He has previously held conducting posts at the Hallé as its Youth Choir Director and at Manchester University as Director of Choirs.

Louis Hartshorn

Louis is an entrepreneur and live entertainment producer. He is CEO of Hartshorn – Hook Enterprise, Executive Director of the Arts Theatre and Founder of Future Stages.

In entertainment, Louis has produced productions such as the Olivier Award-winning Rotterdam, the Grammy and Olivier-award nominated Amelie the Musical, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, Madagsacar the Musical, Woody Sez and the Immersive Great Gatsby – the UK’s longest running immersive production. In 2019 he founded Immersive|LDN a specialist immersive theatre and event venue in central London.

He programs the Arts Theatre in London, which is currently home to the smash hit and global phenomenon, Six the Musical.

In hospitality he has created The Lucky Club in Mayfair, a modern cocktail bar with streetwear tie-in, Katsubo, a Japanese-inspired burger concept, The Farrier in Camden, a neighbourhood pub specialising in reclaimed English food and natural wine, and the Covent Garden Social Club in collaboration with JJ Goodman, a cocktail bar with nightly live entertainment.

He is the joint CEO of Immersive Everywhere, which is producing Doctor Who: Time Fracture and working with major IP to develop the world’s leading immersive productions.

His work with Future Stages is aimed at providing opportunity in the Arts for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, including providing access to experience in performance, backstage and in leadership positions.

Louis is a director of Industry Arts Marketing, a theatre-specialist marketing agency and Arts Tickets, a ticketing service for events and festivals.