Operatic team shapes up

The team that will run Crescendo 97, the Year Of Opera And Musical Theatre in the East of England is taking shape.

Peter Sarah, the chief executive, has appointed Richard Shaw, director of corporate affairs at English National Ballet as director of communications; Nancy Myles, formerly head of the British Council's regional office in Cambridge as administrator; and Kate Tyrrell, administrator of Opera Circus, as project co-ordinator.

Peter Sarah, who ran the Australian bicentennial festival, has already appointed Russell Willis Taylor, former head of fundraising with English National Opera, as deputy chief executive and Sarah Gibbon, former education officer with the Aldeburgh Foundation, as education consultant.

The event is part of the Arts Council's Arts 2000 project. The team intends to bring opera to new audiences by avoiding conventional theatres and staging performances in parks, woods and even aircraft hangars.