Rory Jeffes has been appointed as Opera Australia’s new CEO, taking over from Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini who has managed both positions since the departure of Craig Hassall earlier in the year. Jeffes, who is currently Executive Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, is a popular figure on the Australian music scene and a well-respected manager who brings decades of experience to one of the top jobs in Australian arts.

“It is highly impressive how Opera Australia, under the artistic direction of Lyndon Terracini, has developed as an innovative performing arts company of international renown,” Jeffes said of the challenge of working with Australia’s largest arts company. “I greatly look forward to working closely with Lyndon and the many highly talented people at OA to build on these achievements into the future.”

A British import, Jeffes joined the SSO in 2005, first as Director of External Relations and then as Managing Director from 2008. “Singing was always a key part of my upbringing,” he told Limelight back in 2015, referring to his time as a choral scholar at Christ Church, Oxford. “Outside my formal education I was exposed to a broad range of music. An early memory is sitting on the...