NYB Moving Forward Together

The trustees are delighted to announce that Melanie Wilson is joining National Youth Ballet as General Manager and Jo Meredith as Creative Development Director. Together they are planning to build on the legacy of Jill Tookey CBE and all those involved in the creation and development of National Youth Ballet to produce an enthusiastic and inspirational programme with creativity and diversity at its heart. The appointments take effect immediately and Melanie and Jo very much look forward to sharing their ideas and progress with you over the coming months.

Melanie Wilson previously worked as Music Projects Co-ordinator at the Southbank Centre where she was responsible for delivering the classical music season under Amelia Freedman CBE, FRAM from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 she became Producer in the Artistic Programming team at the Southbank Centre. Melanie worked on contemporary composer festivals including Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra’s week long residency with Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Barenboim Artist as Leader series – Beethoven Sonata Cycle. Melanie has since enjoyed working with Vocal Futures – a foundation set up to inspire young people to engage with classical music – producing The Choice opera at The Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music in 2015; as Competition Manager for National Choir of the Year 2016 with BBC Four; and Producer, Stage Manager and Artist Liaison for Tate Live Performances, Tate Modern, since 2016. She will continue working as Operations Manager at Bloomsbury Festival where she has been since 2017.

Jo Meredith is an alumna of National Youth Ballet and has created seven ballets for the company. She is an international movement director, dance educator and choreographer. She was Creative Director of English National Ballet’s ENB Youth Co. between 2014 and 2019 and, during that time, directed their flagship education project Dance Journeys at Sadler’s Wells. She is currently the Creative Director of ENB’s new youth dance initiative ENB Youth
Co-nnect, a company designed to train and prepare young dancers to audition for ENB Youth Co. For British Youth Music Theatre she directed and choreographed More in Common, a musical inspired by the life and work of murdered MP Jo Cox. She is associate lecturer in choreography at London Studio Centre.
Movement Direction includes productions such as I Masnadieri, la Bohème, Tosca and Rigoletto, working alongside directors Sir David McVicar, Amy Lane, Kasper Holten and others at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Icelandic Opera, Savonlinna Opera Festival, Royal Danish Opera, Teatro Real, Madrid and Teatro Alla Scala, Milan.

Melanie and Jo join National Youth Ballet at a challenging time in our history but the board is very much looking forward to working with them to devise programmes to make National Youth Ballet truly national and to continue to increase accessibility, diversity and inclusion, as has been the case with National Youth Ballet’s online and interactive response to the Covid crisis: #nybinthistogether.

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