Meet our Team and our Board:

Meet the team and our board who are responsible for the running of the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival and the three strands of our work.

Simon Hart

For the past thirty years Simon has enjoyed a busy, successful and varied career in the arts. A graduate of the University of Glasgow, the Royal College of Music and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Simon has worked as a classical singer, actor in theatre and TV, musical director and singing teacher with leading UK cultural institutions such as Scottish Opera, Dundee Rep, the Royal Lyceum Theatre, RADA, and the universities of Queen Margaret, Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Before joining the festival, Simon was the CEO of the Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre on the Isle of North Uist. Previous to that, Simon was the artistic director and CEO of Puppet Animation Scotland, championing puppetry, visual theatre and animation nationally and internationally primarily through the organisation’s two national festivals, the MANIPULATE Festival and the Puppet Animation Festival.

Email: simon@dgartsfestival.org.uk 

Aisling Anderson

Aisling has recently graduated with a First Class Honours in Drama, at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. She now splits her time between the city, and her home region of Dumfries and Galloway. Before her move back to Dumfries, Aisling has worked as a freelance Producer for multiple theatre organisations in Edinburgh including the Edinburgh Footlights, and her own theatre company Veto Theatre. Aisling grew up in Lockerbie, and found her passion for theatre and music through local groups- she now enjoys singing, playing fiddle in a ceilidh band, and performing as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. She is thoroughly enjoying being back in her home town, working for an organisation that brought her so many wonderful opportunities as a younger girl. Email: Aisling@dgartsfestival.org.uk

 

Liam Russell

Liam Russell is a creative producer based in Dumfries and Galloway. Liam has been the creative lead behind the development of UP YER AIRTS over the last four years. Joining the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival team amidst the global pandemic, he has used his creativity and innovation to steer and build the project from the ground up, with a programme of engaging, accessible opportunities planned for 2024. Liam has built UP YER AIRTS to be a vehicle for experiential learning opportunities designed to give young people a platform to explore their creative practice, and plan for a future career in the creative industries.

Liam is also the Founder of Stomping Ground Creative, a company dedicated to providing music production and education services in Dumfries and Galloway.

Claudia Wood

Claudia’s early life started in Sanquhar, where she grew up on a hill farm, near Mennock. She was a Police Constable in Dumfries & Galloway for 6 years, before relocating to Wiltshire. After leaving the Police, Claudia studied at Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, and Royal Conservatoire of Birmingham. She also studied with international operatic tenor Dennis O’Neill CBE, at Wales International Academy of Voice, where her studies were supported by the Mario Lanza Education Foundation & The Kathleen Trust. In 2018, Claudia was awarded The Wagner Society of Scotland’s Bayreuth Scholarship. Whilst living in the South-West of England, Claudia worked as a Schools Cluster Coordinator for Wiltshire Music Connect (the music education hub for Wiltshire), working with teachers to support the development of music-making opportunities for children and young people. She also enjoyed working closely with Celebrating Age Wiltshire, performing in various community settings as part of a county-wide project delivering culture and heritage events and activity in community settings to support the wellbeing of vulnerable older people. Claudia also teaches singing and piano, both privately and in schools. She has experience of leading choirs, music ensembles and teaching classical music.

Mark Alexander

Mark has worked in theatres from Aberdeen to Arnhem, doing every job from general manager to ice cream seller, for the last 48 years.

He trained as an actor at The Drama Studio, London, after a degree in English and Theatre from Lancaster University. After ten years as an actor, Mark joined commercial manager Charles Vance as production manager and later General Manager of Harlow Playhouse. Mark has directed, and designed lights and sets, for many shows, and is an enthusiastic veteran of over 50 pantomimes.

During his eight years as Production Manager and member of the senior management team at Oldham Coliseum, Mark supervised over fifty productions and a major refit of the theatre.  Mark has an unusual breadth of experience, having worked in subsidised regional producing theatres, commercial No.1 theatre touring, summer repertory, rural & small scale touring, Shakespeare, musicals, open air  and promenade theatre, in venues from village halls to Manchester Royal Exchange and the Dutch National Theatre, including many theatres in Scotland, and several shows at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Mark was General Manager of the Lowther Pavilion in Lytham St Annes and has been in his current post as Director of the Theatre Royal Dumfries  for the last seven years. He lives in Moniaive with his actress/director/writer partner Sue McCormick.

Dani Rae

Dani Rae is Managing Director of Assembly Festival, the longest running multi-venue operator on the Edinburgh Fringe.  Over the last 20 years, Dani has worked with some of the UK and Europe’s leading arts organisations including: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, Aurora Nova, Imaginate, Tron Theatre, Scottish Opera, Stellar Quines, Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival and Live Theatre. 

Assembly also produces the Edinburgh Food Festival and with partners Unique Events, Edinburgh’s Christmas and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay.

Originally from Dumfries & Galloway, Dani is proud to be part of D&G Arts Festival, an integral part of the arts and cultural landscape of the region.

Katy Taylor

Katy Taylor divides her time between Dumfries and Galloway and Northumberland.  She is the Artistic Director of the Queen’s Hall in Hexham, a multipurpose arts-centre with a 360 theatre, studio theatre and 2 gallery spaces.  She is an very experience arts programme, with excellent working knowledge of the complexities of touring work and has worked in the rural arts sector for many years.

 

Katy has experience of supporting emerging artists as well as leading staff teams to deliver excellent art and culture to the public.  She is passionate about creating opportunities for young people in the cultural sector.

Sarah Dhesi

Sarah Dhesi has been an HR generalist for nearly 20 years. She is currently semi-retired and working for Pioneer Foodservice whose vans can frequently be seen on the roads of Dumfries and Galloway.  For thirteen years she constituted the entire HR department however she is now very happy to share the nurturing and support of over 400 employees with her wonderful new boss!

She has been a keen amateur actor since her student days at Strathclyde University where she took part in productions with the award-winning Strathclyde Theatre Group (STG) one of the highlights of which was performing in an adaptation of a George Mackay Brown short story in front of the great man himself in Orkney.

Since moving to Dumfries and Galloway she has performed frequently with Langholm Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society (strictly on the dramatic side).  Currently she enjoys appearing as the Reader for the Galloway Consort who specialise in the performing of European music from the 15th – 17th centuries on instruments constructed to be historically accurate.

She also enjoys reading and writing.

Luke Welch

Luke Welch is a performer and has been based near Moffat, Dumfries & Galloway since 2012. He participated in drama workshops at the Studio Theatre in Moffat from August 2017 until the first Covid lockdown in March 2020 and led and supported sessions for young people aged 5-15 from March-June this year.

Luke is an active member and Assistant Producer for Performance Collective Stranraer, having performed in their ongoing production Bippity, participated in their fifth professional development lab, helped promote their recent show Unsupervised Adulting and he writes their Newsletter once a month.

Luke joined YPG in November 2021 and has been a part of numerous monthly meetings and workshops online and in person. He also aided with stewarding in May this year during the D&G Arts Festival at Bogha Frois, Threads and Sounds of Stage iT. Luke also went on a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the YPG and members of Catstrand Young Creatives in August.