Amy Mallett – Artistic/Executive Director
Cohere Arts founder Dr. Amy Mallett is a composer and theatre-maker creating performance work inspired by contemporary and historical stories. Amy created music and libretto for both Witchfinder and Herstory, and is composer/sound designer for Living on Air. Her 2018 PhD thesis examined interdisciplinary collaboration in musical theatre, and subsequent research has explored both the creative process and the transformative power of the arts.
As well as leading Cohere Arts, Amy applies her rich cross-sector knowledge and expertise as a creative health consultant, drawing on experiences working in the educational and cultural sectors as well as the NHS. A skilled strategist, evaluator and facilitator, she has worked with a wide variety of arts organisations including English National Ballet, Britten Pears Arts, DanceEast, Suffolk Libraries, University of the Arts London, and Clod Ensemble’s Performing Medicine.
Creative Associates
Tom Appleton
Tom Appleton is the Director of Music at Aldeburgh Music Club, Music Director of King’s Lynn Festival Chorus, a ‘Friday Afternoons’ Ambassador, and the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Come and Sing Company. Tom’s musical development began as a chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral before joining the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. He read Music at the University of York and then spent 10 years performing with the Monteverdi Choir including as a soloist in the 2010 BBC Proms.
In 2019, Tom was Music Director of Giant – A Tree Climbing Concert in the Waltham Forest, London Borough of Culture celebrations and also led 700 Norfolk schoolchildren who formed the Massed Ensemble at the Music for Youth Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. In 2020, Tom presented Rapunzel the Lockdown Pantomime to over 200,000 school children who sang, danced and signed along from schools and homes from Aberdeen to the Isle of White.
Emma Bernard
Emma Bernard directs performance for stage, screen, site-specific locations and concert platforms. She works across musical, verbal, visual, and physical performance disciplines, making complex, humane, playful and provocative work in collaboration with a diverse range of people including single artists and groups of hundreds, experienced professionals and absolute beginners. Emma is director of our High Spirits drama group for visually impaired adults, and has applied her writing, dramaturgy and directorial skills across many Cohere Arts performance projects.
Robert Gildon
Robert studied singing at Manhattan School of Music, New York, the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival and the Britten Pears School. Recent work includes La Belle Hélène (New Sussex Opera), La Fille du Regiment (Opera della luna at Buxton Festival), Moon Hares and The Fairy Queen Project (Orchestra Age of Enlightenment), Merry Widow (Iford Festival), Time Capsule Project (Grange Festival), Manz in Delius’s A Village Romeo and Juliet (New Sussex Opera), Beautiful World Opera and Water in the Desert Projects in Abu Dhabi, Ezra Pound’s Le Testament de Villon (London Contemporary Music Festival) Ariadne auk Naxos and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Garsington Opera) He has also performed roles for Opera North, The Opera Group, London Symphony Orchestra, Grange Park Opera, Opera Project, Cambridge Handel Opera, Bampton Classical Opera and Pimlico OPrison Project. He lives in Suffolk with a menagerie of animals and was delighted to be part of our Witchfinder projects as singing leader and performer.
Francis Goodhand
Francis is an accomplished composer, songwriter, arranger, musical director and pianist, who creates, directs and performs music for theatre, media, events and education. He’s a passionate educator and shares his love of music with people of all ages and backgrounds. A trained singing for health practitioner, Francis devises and lead workshops in the community, including singing, dance and music-making, exploring music’s powerful and transformative effect. Francis is the founder and leader of our Tonic: Singing for Health group based at Leiston Library.
Lulu Horsfield
Lulu is a highly experienced and versatile visual artist, working across a variety of our programmes. As founder and co-director of CICs Rock Paper Scissors and AMPP Studio, Lulu teaches art and design to all ages and has worked as a designer and illustrator across fashion, textiles, editorial, music and film. In past ventures, Lulu has sold her illustrated fashion label through House of Fraser, and also showcased a film made with her husband film maker Jim Horsfield at Tate Britain.
Rosy May
Rosy May is an enthusiastic and vibrant dance artist and choreographer living in beautiful Ipswich. She uses her creativity and energy to share different cultures, histories, music and stories through the medium of movement. Her most well known work is the film: The Islands- a Caribbean dance led film on youtube. Rosy is a proud autistic artist who currently works all over East Anglia, and spends her free time crocheting and reading romance stories.
Nicola Wydenbach
Nicola is a graduate of the Royal College of Music where she was supported by a scholarship from Diva Opera. As a soprano, she has performed with companies including ENO, Opera Rara, Scottish Opera, the Monteverdi Choir, Philharmonia Voices and London Voices. Nicola is an experienced oratorio soloist having worked for societies throughout England.
A leading UK expert in singing for health, Nicola is Director of Training for SingToBeat and Musical Director of the Mind and Soul Choir, and leads numerous singing groups and practitioner training courses across the UK. She also founded Medising, which provides digital solutions around singing for health. Nicola led on our Creative Space programme and was Project Director for our HerStory projects.