Mary Hill

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Mary Hill studied piano, organ and viola and played the Bach D minor concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra whilst still at school. She studied music at Oxford University, the Guildhall School of Music and the London Opera Centre, where she later joined the staff as a coach. In the 60's and 70's she sang with the Schutz Choir under Roger Norrington, the Monteverdi Choir under John Eliot Gardiner, and the Elizabethan Singers.

She founded Abbey Opera in 1965. In 1976 Antony Shelley became its conductor and formed Abbey Orchestra. The company productions (many of them premières and lesser-known opera rarities) played in all the major venues in London and visited Rennes (France) and the Edinburgh Festival. Many concerts for the Camden Festival were recorded for broadcast by Radio Three. In 1996 Abbey Opera was affiliated to Birkbeck College.

word to pdf converter Mary has worked for Glyndebourne, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Kent Opera, Opera Rara, the Northern Ireland Opera Trust, the Royal Opera at Stockholm, and Virginia Opera Association, USA. She was involved in accompanying for the BBC and also gave recitals in the South Bank (London). In 1985 she became Acting Director, then Director of Opera Studies at the Royal College of Music, and from 1989 Assistant to the Director of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music and coach for the National Opera Studio. She is currently Chief Coach and Opera Co-ordinator at the Royal Academy of Music, and runs the postgraduate opera course at Trinity College of Music.