Our Team
Orlando Jopling
Artistic Director
Orlando Jopling is a conductor and cellist. His conducting work has ranged from guest music staff and conducting positions at the Royal Opera House, Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, to performing and recording a huge range of orchestral repertoire with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Mozart Players and the Irish Chamber Orchestra among many others.
His music-making as a cellist has ranged from over 150 solo recitals, recording the 6 Bach cello Suites to critical acclaim, or a lifelong obsession with chamber music, to playing on numerous film scores and on tour as a guest tutti cellist with all of the great international orchestras based in London, most regularly with the Philharmonia and London Symphony Orchestra.
He loves collaboration and has created experimental new work with theatre companies, dancers and choreographers, poets, school pupils, students, folk musicians, global superstars like Sinead O'Connor, and visual artists.
He has appeared in several feature films and TV series as a conductor, most recently as Pierre Monteux conducting an early performance of the Rite of Spring.
Jessica Chapman
Producer
Jessie Chapman has worn a number of different hats throughout her career: starting her working life organizing events for the Friends of the Royal Academy, she was poached by a renowned dealer in fine art and antiques based between Mayfair and Brussels to become his right-hand woman, before joining ATG Oxford to lead luxury cultural walking holidays in Italy and France. Hanging up her walking boots after several years, she joined the BBC where she directed and produced travel programmes – continuing to update guide books and write travel articles for the national press – as well as live events such as Live 8 Rome, before moving on to indie production company Talkback Thames where her final role took her to NYC to produce a documentary series for Discovery, shot in a Bronx hospital.
Taking a break to have a family, she moved to Essex and fell in love with the county for its salt marshes and wide horizons as well as the wonderful community in her village of Wivenhoe. While bringing up her two boys, she started taking on freelance projects as a literary book editor, and producing yoga, book, and living history festivals.
She was a school ‘musico’, founding an early recorder group, singing in choirs, and playing the violin and is delighted to be immersing herself again in this world. Widely read with a passion for literature, the arts, travel, and history, she started a degree in Latin and Ancient Hebrew at Edinburgh University, spending a year as a classics student in Bologna where she sang in the university choir for Bologna’s 1000 Year Celebrations as well as touring in Italy and Poland, and left Scotland with a degree in Italian Language and Literature.
Advisory Committee
Stavroula Karapapa
Stavroula Karapapa
Stavroula Karapapa
Stavroula Karapapa is a Greek-British barrister and academic. Trained in Athens and London, she practised commercial and IP law before entering academia.
Her publications, including Copyright and Mass Digitization and Intellectual Property Law, explore how law adapts to new technologies and creative industries. She is now Professor of Inte
Stavroula Karapapa is a Greek-British barrister and academic. Trained in Athens and London, she practised commercial and IP law before entering academia.
Her publications, including Copyright and Mass Digitization and Intellectual Property Law, explore how law adapts to new technologies and creative industries. She is now Professor of Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Essex and has taken on university-wide responsibility as Pan-University Dean of Partnerships (Research) at Essex, integrating a business-development and strategic partnerships role to support research collaboration and institutional growth.
Beyond academia, Stavroula chairs the Greek Language and Culture Community of Colchester, promoting Greek heritage locally, and sits on the board of Creative Colchester.
Joanne Ooi
Stavroula Karapapa
Stavroula Karapapa
Joanne Ooi is a Singapore-born, US-educated entrepreneur, former creative director turned environmental activist and cultural curator. She revitalised the luxury fashion house Shanghai Tang, co-founded the clean-air NGO Clean Air Network, and launched fine-jewellery platform Plukka in 2011.
Since relocating to the UK, she now runs the art
Joanne Ooi is a Singapore-born, US-educated entrepreneur, former creative director turned environmental activist and cultural curator. She revitalised the luxury fashion house Shanghai Tang, co-founded the clean-air NGO Clean Air Network, and launched fine-jewellery platform Plukka in 2011.
Since relocating to the UK, she now runs the arts-and-ideas event EA Festival, combining culture, sustainability and entrepreneurship. She now serves as Chair of Creative Colchester, a community-driven arts and cultural partnership initiative, helping to shape arts, education and cultural-heritage outreach in Colchester’s creative community.
Joanne enjoys symphonic music, in particular by Beethoven and Mahler; the Roman River Festival final Saturday concert in 2025 could have been curated especially for her!
David Toube
Stavroula Karapapa
Ben Vonberg-Clark
David Toube is a barrister with an LLB from Southampton and a BCL from Brasenose College, Oxford. He taught law at Queen Mary University of London before 25 years in regulatory practice, including leading a European banking-regulation team at an international firm. He later moved into policy and counter-extremism, becoming Policy Director
David Toube is a barrister with an LLB from Southampton and a BCL from Brasenose College, Oxford. He taught law at Queen Mary University of London before 25 years in regulatory practice, including leading a European banking-regulation team at an international firm. He later moved into policy and counter-extremism, becoming Policy Director at Quilliam and, since April 2025, General Counsel of the Jewish Leadership Council.
David is a guest contributor to UK Jewish Film, the charity and film-festival organisation promoting Jewish culture through cinema, taking part in post-screening discussions. He is a keen concert-goer, with a passion for Early and Baroque choral music in heritage venues.
Ben Vonberg-Clark
Ben Vonberg-Clark
Ben Vonberg-Clark
Ben Vonberg-Clark is a tenor, choral conductor and music educator known for his deep commitment to choral singing and music outreach. He serves as Musical Director of the University of Essex Choir, leading performances with ensembles such as the London Mozart Players and the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment.
In 2023, he published
Ben Vonberg-Clark is a tenor, choral conductor and music educator known for his deep commitment to choral singing and music outreach. He serves as Musical Director of the University of Essex Choir, leading performances with ensembles such as the London Mozart Players and the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment.
In 2023, he published a teaching book titled “Introducing Singing” and, as part of his mission to expand high-quality choral education to young people from diverse backgrounds, he has founded and led several children’s and youth choirs including the Wivenhoe Youth Choir.
More recently, he has taken on leadership of REVERB, the choir for 11–18-year-olds based in Framlingham, Suffolk. As a performer, Ben is known for his interpretations of 20th-century English music by composers such as Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett.
Theresa Kane
Ben Vonberg-Clark
Theresa Kane
Biography coming soon...