Gemma’s multi-disciplinary skills and cross genre experience have her in great demand as a musical director, and her background as a multi-instrumentalist gives her a unique insight into the balancing act between composer, director, audience and musician. Specialising in work with large ensembles, her extensive background in facilitating multi-platform arts collaboration and mixed ability devising enables her to both realise the directors vision, and coax the most from her performers.
This year she has been working with the Royal Shakespeare Company on Cowbois, developing a new musical about Hildegaard Von Bingham, devising new work with Theatre of the Furies, and Musical Supervisor for Roaring Voices. Recent tours include UK/Australia tour of Theatre de Complicite’s ‘A Pacifists Guide to the War on Cancer’, and the Mediterranean recee for ‘Salt Pianos’. She has been visiting MD and lecturer at Mountview academy of the theatre arts, London College of Music, University of Sussex, and the Belgrade Music and Psychology Conference.
Gemma was the 2017- 2022 Musical Director of the Sing For Freedom choir, a singing group for refugees and asylum seekers who have survived torture. The choir presents a unique and moving mix of grooves from the DRC and sub-saharan Africa combined with traditional choral numbers from the British Isles. She and Saied Silbak composed the lead song for their recent performance at Singing our Lives: Under the Same Sun