Alongside the recent appointment of conductor Gerry Cornelius as Music Director, English Touring Opera has appointed two new Artists in Association: Holly Mathieson and Jonathan Peter Kenny.

Mathieson is a conductor, currently holding the posts of Music Director of Symphony Nova Scotia in Canada, Artistic Director of Rata Music Collective and Co-Artistic Director of the Nevis Ensemble. Until recently she was Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Resident Conductor with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland Orchestras. Kenny is a distinguished singer, conductor and coach who has brought a special flavour to ETO's baroque opera productions; he is the Music Director of ETO's partner period orchestra, the Old Street Band.

Mathieson and Kenny will be part of a new Music Advisory Panel, which will also include Vocal Consultant Sergey Rybin and Orchestra Manager Philip Turbett. Rybin is a pianist and vocal coach who has worked with all the leading UK opera companies and academies; he is currently at work for ETO on a film of the Shostakovich Michelangelo Suite with bass Edward Hawkins and ETO Director James Conway. Turbett is ETO's longstanding Orchestra Manager and a founder of the Old Street Band; in addition to his teaching and his governance roles, Turbett is a bassoonist in leading modern and period orchestras.

The Music Advisory Panel will ensure that English Touring Opera keeps a sharp focus on excellence and inclusivity in all musical practice, that it makes a habit of posing questions about relevance, and that it keeps freelance artists, regional audiences and high standards at its heart. Director James Conway remarked "I feel that English Touring Opera is renewing itself in some really exciting and hopeful ways at the moment - none moreso than this appointment of a panel of questioning and thoughtful experts to help ETO to be as distinctive, excellent and clear sighted as possible as we get back to live performance".