Our Team
Biographies
Michelle Castelletti
Festival Director
Dr Michelle Castelletti is a conductor, composer and interdisciplinary artist with a passion for cross-art and site-specific curation. After leaving her post as music lecturer and conductor at university, as well as the running of Sounds New Contemporary Music Festival, Michelle became the Artistic Director of the Royal Northern College of Music, as both an Arts Centre, and as a Conservatoire. She has been been a speaker at national and international conferences and has worked for audition and jury panels, including the British Composer Awards, European Capital of Culture and Venice Biennale. She has created and developed significant national and international partnerships and feels privileged to have worked with exceptional artists in her life. Michelle recently finished her tenure as Artistic Director of the Malta International Arts Festival, with a remit to lead towards European Capital of Culture 2018. She is now Director of Oxford Festival of the Arts.
Michelle’s latest conducting performances was Mozart’s comic opera, L’Impresario in a new production for children in a splendid 18th century theatre. She opened the 2019-20 season for Malta’s national orchestra with a free outdoor public concert of the President of Malta in Valletta’s main Square. Past personal favourites include conducting at Birmingham Symphony Hall, Richard Strauss and Mahler in Canterbury Cathedral, Carmina Burana, conducting with Carmine Lauri (co-leader of the LSO) at the Valletta International Baroque Festival, the privilege of conducting the Canterbury Cathedral choristers, conducting Arvo Pärt’s music for Arvo Pärt himself, Stravinsky’s Firebird, and a production of Sweeney Todd.
Michelle loves creating interdisciplinary projects in atypical spaces. Her performances, projects, curations and festivals have received 5* reviews and awards, one of the most prestigious being the award of the Times Higher Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts. Michelle has curated study days at Wigmore Hall and taken performances to the Southbank Centre. Other projects she was involved in include BBC R3 Young Artists Day, BBC R3 Live In Tune and Music Matters programmes and BBC Proms Portraits. She has been interviewed extensively on various channels on the BBC. She recently welcomed Krzysztof Penderecki as resident composer/conductor, culminating in the UK premiere of his monumental Seven Gates of Jerusalem, which received a five-star review from The Guardian. Michelle feels privileged to have nominated and presented Penderecki with an honorary degree.
Michelle is on the Board of Directors of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, Trustee of the ISM Trust and of ORA Singers, Governor on the Board of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is published by Universal Edition Vienna and has been broadcast on several channels (including the digital World Concert Hall), and is recorded by BIS RECORDS and ARS PRODUKTION. The BIS/ Storgårds recording has been receiving double 5* 10-10-10 reviews, across the board. It was No. 1 Orchestral Choice of the Month, on BBC Music Magazine – The Proms Edition, July 2019. The ARS Produktion recording is planned for a Spring 2020 release.
In her younger years, Michelle has acted as a repetiteur, pianist and/or accompanist and still loves chamber music very much. She is a Soprano and loves lyrical dramatic roles (when she has time!). Michelle is enamoured with history and material culture and is thrilled to have read for a Masters of Studies in Literature and Arts at the University of Oxford, based on interdisciplinarity between the Arts: a liberal degree which seemed to encapsulate everything she loves, based on interdisciplinarity, and the beautiful encounter between academia and creativity. In another life, she would have been an architect building cathedrals or a scribe illuminating manuscripts. Michelle loves being surrounded by art, her music and books. See Michelle’s answers to our Difficult Dozen Questions here
You can see Michelle conducting the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra performing Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations as part of the #OFAvirtual concert.
Milica Tičerić
Festival Administrator
Milica Tičerić is an administrator, artist and entrepreneur specializing in analogue photography, cyanotype printmaking and jewelry design. She holds a Master of Arts in creative Enterprise form University of Reading and Bachelors of Tourism and Economics from the University of Belgrade. Milica’s artistic practice explores traditional photographic techniques and tactile creativity, blending craftsmanship with innovative approaches.
Milica is also an active member of the Oxford art community, serving as a Trustee at OVADA in Oxford.