Music Director of English National Opera since May 2007. Gardner studied at Eton and read music at the University of Cambridge. Whilst a postgraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music he was invited to assist Austrian conductor Michael Gielen at the 1999 Salzburg Festival. He worked with Mark Elder and the Hallé orchestra before his appointment as Music Director of Glyndebourne on Tour in 2003. In April this year Gardner was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Conductor. As Music Director of ENO Gardner has conducted productions ranging from Verdi's Aida and Bizet's Carmen to Britten's Death in Venice and Birtwistle's Punch and Judy. Gardner leads the company's 2008/09 season, which opens on 20 September, with new productions of Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci with new texts written by poet Sean O'Brien and playwright Lee Hall, respectively.
Jillian Edelstein was born in South Africa where she began her photographic career as a press photographer before moving to Britain to study at the London College of Printing. Her portraits have appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. Her photographs of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were published in her award-winning book Truth and Lies (2002).
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