The Team

Freddie Tapner

CEO and Artistic Director

Freddie Tapner is a theatre and music entrepreneur, executive, producer, conductor and musical supervisor specialising in musical theatre and orchestral concerts. He is CEO & Artistic Director of the London Musical Theatre Orchestra and a guest conductor at Volksoper, Vienna.

Freddie started his career in entertainment in 2014 after gaining a first class degree in Engineering from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and quickly found success as a musical director, working on projects with composer Howard Goodall and actor/writer Nick Mohammed. In July 2015 he founded the London Musical Theatre Orchestra, a charitable organisation dedicated to performing musical theatre in concert form.

As a conductor, Freddie has worked across London and internationally, with notable performances including Anatevka (Fiddler on the Roof) (Volksoper, Vienna), Chess (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), A Christmas Carol (Dominion Theatre), The Best of the West End (Royal Albert Hall), Lucie Jones Live at the Adelphi (Adelphi Theatre), Jingle Bell Favourites (Dubai Opera House), Camelot (London Palladium) and Candide (Cadogan Hall).

He has produced and executive produced shows in some of London’s biggest theatres, including the London Palladium, the Dominion Theatre, the Lyceum Theatre and Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Most notably, he produced a four-week run of Alan Menken’s A Christmas Carol at the Dominion Theatre in December 2020, which played to over 10,000 people despite being closed after just 11 performances due to government covid restrictions.

His work branched into television in 2022 where he was the Musical Supervisor and Music Producer for the 60-minute comedy Prince Andrew: The Musical for Hat Trick Productions/Channel 4, producing seven original songs in collaboration with Kieran Hodgson. Other recordings/broadcasts include Lucie Jones Live at the Adelphi (Live Album), Girlfriends (Live Album) and The Best of the West End (BBC Radio 2).

Peter Huntley for Smart Entertainment

General Manager

Smart Entertainment was founded by Peter Huntley in 2017 following a decade working with some of the UK’s leading producers including Sonia Friedman Productions, Jamie Hendry Productions, the Really Useful Theatre Group and Shakespeare’s Globe. Peter was associate producer of Bend It Like Beckham at the Phoenix and general manager of The Wind in the Willows on tour and at the London Palladium. He was executive producer of the filmed version of The Wind in the Willows.

Current and recent clients include Gyre & Gimble, Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Live at Comedy, Eclipse Theatre Company, Rifco, Simon Friend Entertainment, Trademark Touring, It Happened in Key West at Charing Cross, The Big House Theatre Company and Scaffold Shakespeare Company.

Frances Leith

Learning and Development Producer

Frances is thrilled to be joining the LMTO team as Learning and Development Producer, combining her passions for musical theatre and education work. Trained as a French horn player, Frances has enjoyed exploring the boundaries of the music profession both through her playing and her producing experience. Creative learning and participatory music-making form a pivotal part of her career. In 2018, Frances co-founded the music education group, Hold the Drama, where she is the producer and horn player. She is also project manager for Thinking Music, an initiative which builds sustainable music ecosystems that enriches the lives of children, especially in rural areas.

As a horn player, Frances has performed with a wide variety of ensembles, including as a regular dep for The Lion King. Having been an LMTO dev herself, Frances looks forward to continuing the development of this programme, supporting young musicians as they enter the professional world.

Alice Wright

Sitz Manager

Alice comes to LMTO from Askonas Holt and English Touring Opera, and, alongside her new role at Sitz, is also the Artistic and Operations Manager at Nevill Holt Opera. She trained as a singer at the University of York and has loved musical theatre since discovering The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins when she was little. Her favourite musicals now include Legally Blonde, Come From Away and Little Women. Outside of work she loves tea, knitting and baking, and her favourite time of day is bedtime.

Aislin Barraclough

Production Assistant

Aislin is thrilled to be LMTO’s Production Assistant. Having trained in commercial songwriting and in musical theatre performance at ICMP London and Arts Ed respectively, she also has sharp data and analytical skills gained working in the Higher Education sector.

On a daily basis Aislin can be found managing and upgrading LMTO’s databases, patching mic cables, creating social media content and marketing materials, drinking an alarming amount of tea and generally making sure the LMTO team has everything they need to make musical magic.

Aislin is also a singer songwriter. Her music has amassed millions of streams worldwide and graced several top Spotify playlists including New Music Friday UK, New Pop Revolution and The Most Beautiful Songs in the World. Find her work on any streaming platform by searching ‘Aislin Evans’.

Simon Nathan

Principal Orchestrator

Simon is the Principal Orchestrator for LMTO, regularly leading a group of handpicked arrangers to create new symphonic orchestrations of entire shows. He started orchestrating whilst musical director of the Cambridge University Pops Orchestra, rapidly became obsessed, and has never looked back since.

In 2015 Simon assisted the orchestrators, Howard Goodall and Kuljit Bhamra, on the West End production of Bend it Like Beckham. He regularly works with John Wilson as an arranger, copyist and editor. His reconstruction of In Our United State was performed by the John Wilson Orchestra at the 2016 BBC Proms. He is also the principal arranger of the Orion Symphony Orchestra, having produced arrangements for their sold-out shows in the Royal Festival Hall, Cadogan Hall, and other venues.

Selected original orchestrations include Noisy Notes, a new children’s song by Rick Wakeman, performed at the Royal Festival Hall with the Orion Orchestra conducted by Sue Perkins; Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad and Beowulf, two new operas by Louis Mander, commissioned by Tête à Tête Opera Festival and Cantata Dramatica respectively; The Last Post, a musical by Henry Jenkinson; The Emperor’s New Clothes, the Cambridge Footlights pantomime with music by Ryan Rodrigues; and over fifty songs from stage, pop albums and TV arranged for symphony orchestra, performed by the Orion Orchestra and the Cambridge University Pops Orchestra to consistent five-star reviews.

Declan Corr

Senior Orchestrator

As Senior Orchestrator for LMTO, Declan leads the Developing Orchestrators programme, supervising a team of arrangers to create new large orchestral versions of favourite musicals. He specialises in the editing, reconstruction and expansion of musical theatre works, and regularly leads and contributes to the orchestrations for many of LMTO’s projects.

Selected credits include:
As lead orchestrator: Lucie Jones – Live at the Adelphi (Adelphi Theatre); Best of the West End 2020 – Stage and Screen (Royal Albert Hall); Chess, Kinky Boots & Treason at West End Live 2022 (Trafalgar Square)

As orchestrator, for LMTO: Scala Radio Christmas Live (Palladium), A Night at the Musicals (Royal & Derngate), Ben Forster – Me, Myself & Musicals (Theatre Royal Haymarket). For the London Gay Men’s Chorus: Sondheim Songtime (Cadogan Hall), Hitsville (Troxy)

Music preparation and additional orchestration: Chess (Theatre Royal Drury Lane), Camelot (London Palladium), Mack and Mabel (Hackney Empire)

Declan is also medically qualified, and is a trainee anaesthetist working in the Central London School of Anaesthesia.

Paul Saunders

Orchestra Fixer

Since graduating from the Royal College of Music as a Clarinetist in 1991, Paul has become one of the busiest woodwind players on the West End circuit and can now usually be found performing the Clarinet chair at London’s Apollo Theatre on Wicked, a post he has held since the show began in 2006.

He is a committed educator and is a teacher of multi-instrumental skills at Birmingham Conservatoire of Music.

Paul’s work outside of the musical theatre genre includes Scottish Opera, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, Chameleon Arts Orchestra, CHROMA and the occasional late-night cabaret at Madame Jo Jo’s, but it is the theatre where he is most at home.

During his West End career, he has performed on Billy Elliot, Guys and Dolls, Les Misérables, The Producers, Mary Poppins, Ghost, Top Hat, Miss Saigon and many more.

TV and studio work include LWT Parkinson and BBC Open University and orchestral work include Scottish Opera, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Northern Ballet and Welsh National Opera.

As a composer, several works are published by Spartan Press. For any other information, please visit his website Paul Saunders.

Paul is a UK endorsee for Legere Reeds.