Max Mason

Max is a recent English Literature graduate from the University of Cambridge, where he was the Linton Seu-Kwan Chu Prize Winner in his College, the 2023 Irene Nemirovsky Grant recipient for research into French-Jewish studies, and the Matthew Walley Choral Scholar. During his time involved in Cambridge music-making, Max was involved in performing new commissions as a part of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, a performance of Duruflé’s Requiem at the Duomo di Milano, and (in an administrative capacity) supporting the Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge. 

Credits include Brian Friel’s Fathers and Sons (dir. Lindsay Turner) at the Donmar Warehouse, the play’s professional London debut, and more recently, as part of an ensemble cast in a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

In opera, directorial credits as part of Cambridge University Opera Society includes Semele, The Magic Flute, and (in his own original translation) Orpheus in the Underworld, performed at West Road Concert Hall. His original operetta—an adaptation of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market—was performed as a part of an evening of new compositions at the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge in 2023. His remarks on rehearsing Handel’s oratorio Saul in Cambridge is forthcoming in an interdisciplinary study ‘Music and the Politics of Censorship’, edited by James Garrett.  

Max was the recent Young Artist Director in Residence at Waterperry Opera Festival in Oxford, where he was the assistant director on the festival mainshow Don Giovanni and directed their Opera Gala, a series of recital scenes as part of a ‘seriously impressive’ summer festival (The Spectator). He's also the co-founder of Fermata Opera, a new site-sympathetic company dedicated to bringing opera to new communities, responding uniquely to culture, texture, people and place. Upcoming projects include An Evening of the Orpheus Myth, at Mandeville Place, Marylebone, London, and a staged performance of Mozart’s Requiem. 

Max speaks French and Chinese (Mandarin), and has been lucky enough to study internationally. He's fascinated at what can be done at the intersection between narrative, song and space, and how to bring this unique combination to new audiences.