Will Majid Ashford is a London-based director and writer whose practice spans opera, theatre, graphic novels, and libretti.
He has staged a number of chamber operas across the UK including Britten's Curlew River, Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen and Holst's Savitri for the Barnes Music Festival, and most recently directed Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) in Hungary My Love, a new play by John Watts.
As an assistant he has worked for Christopher Luscombe at Wexford Festival Opera, Roxana Silbert at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and Guy Roberts at the Prague Shakespeare Company. He shadowed Barrie Kosky at the Royal Opera House, Jetske Mijnssen and Robert Icke at Festival d'Aix, and Christopher Alden at English National Opera.
At the heart of his work is meaningful storytelling and the championing of marginalised voices. Story is a space to challenge and provoke, an engine for change where ideas can fizz long after the curtain has dropped or the last page has been turned.
More than ever, stories can help us make sense of the chaos, question power structures, and forge community.
He has two books in development, one on Charles Darwin and the other on the East India Company. These have taken him to the jungles of Guyana, archives across India, and onboard an 18th-century trading vessel in the Atlantic.
He is currently developing a new opera for Kathleen-Ferrier award-winning countertenor Hugh Cutting, and will soon be working on new libretto for Jessica Walker at the Royal Academy of Music.