Rachel Tackley MBE

Rachel is an award-winning theatre producer, consultant and curator, and is currently Interim Creative Director and Co-Chief Executive of the Arts Theatre Cambridge, where she has led the theatre’s successful reopening and renewal following its major redevelopment. She is also Producer for Heartaches Ltd and is currently working on Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas, opening at Alexandra Palace this December. Most recently, she worked with Arts Council England on the development of its groundbreaking new Incentivising Touring Fund.

Over the course of her career, Rachel has held senior leadership roles including Creative Director of Riverside Studios, Executive Director of Chichester Festival Theatre, Director of English Touring Theatre and Head of Programming at ATG Entertainment. She also served for six years as President of UK Theatre, the UK’s leading industry body. Rachel is Chair of Bretforton Theatrebarn in the Cotswolds and a Director of Lyric Hammersmith Productions. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Cambridge School of Creative Industries at Anglia Ruskin University.

Dame Evelyn Glennie

Dame Evelyn Glennie is the world’s premier solo percussionist. Her solo recordings exceed 40 CDs. A double GRAMMY award winner and BAFTA nominee, Evelyn composes for film, theatre and television. The Evelyn Glennie Podcast was launched in 2020. Evelyn was awarded an OBE in 1993 and has over 100 international awards to date, including the Polar Music Prize, the Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the Companion of Honour. Evelyn is Curator for The Evelyn Glennie Collection. Her iconic film Touch the Sound, TED Talk and charity The Evelyn Glennie Foundation embody her life-long mission to Teach the World to Listen.

Photo credit: © Philip Rathmer (and Brigitte).

Jon Alexander

Jon is author of CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us – a book that seeks to reframe the moment in time we’re living in as one of huge civic opportunity, not just crisis and collapse, and in doing so opens up a world of possibility for organisations and leaders across sectors and across the world.

He co-founded the New Citizenship Project with Irenie Ekkeshis in 2014. It is a strategy and innovation consultancy that aims to shift the dominant story of the individual in society from Consumer to Citizen. The projects client list includes The Guardian, the European Central Bank, and the European Journalism Centre. They have partnered with the BBC, National Trust, the Food Ethics Council and many more. The company is a certified B-corporation.

Having begun his career with a decade in the advertising industry at agencies including BBDO and Fallon, Jon is a proud former winner of Brand Republic’s Big Idea of the Year Award, for creating the concept of MyFarm in 2011: handing over decision making on a real working farm to the public by online vote and debate as a way of engaging people with sustainable food production.

Michael Murfin

Michael is a painter, draughtsman and teacher, born in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. He studied at Leicester Polytechnic, Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham and Birmingham Polytechnic, then worked in a timber yard in St Neots.

During the 1980s Murfin participated in Artist in School schemes in Cambridgeshire and nearby counties, in 1983 gaining a major award from Eastern Arts Association. In 1990 he was visiting lecturer at University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and artist-in-resident at Oundle School.

Michael has also shown his work more locally in St Neots, Huntingdon, Peterborough and in one of his favourite exhibition spaces — The Yarrow Gallery at Oundle School in Northamptonshire (where he has been Artist in Residence on three occasions). More recently he has been supported by Woodbine Contemporary Arts in Spalding and Uppingham.

Hilary Murfin

Hilary is an artist, craftsperson and designer who started to revive and extend her drawing skills through the observation of plants in her somewhat wild garden. She looks for the extraordinary in the ordinary; all the better for being nearby since mobility issues and arthritic hands have obliged her to redirect her creativity. Hilary’s handcrafted papier mache vessels that she began making around ten years ago have unfortunately been discontinued.