The Society’s President is Sir David Pountney CBE, most recently Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Welsh National Opera (2011-2016) and internationally renowned for his work here and overseas as a director and translator of opera. His distinguished career includes posts of Director of Productions at Scottish Opera (1975-1980), and Director of Productions at English National Opera (1982-1993), where he directed over twenty operas. He was a freelance director at the Zurich Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and other houses in America, Japan, and the United Kingdom (1993-2004).
His father, Willoughby, was, for fourteen years (1976-1990), a distinguished Director of Music for Nailsea Choral Society.
Christopher Jennings is the Society’s Vice-President and is closer to home with a lifetime of professional singing to his credit and a busy and successful singing teaching practice in the locality.