Ian Sommerville is a Lighting Designer, Scenographer and Artist who has worked across the world for over thirty years. 

 

He is Scottish by birth, but is currently based in France. After starting in professional theatre at the Edinburgh Festival, Ian went on to study Theatre Design and Stage Management at The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. At college he was awarded the Theatre Design prize which gave him the opportunity to put his first set design on a stage.

 

Ian has lit over 150 productions and has designed many of these as a scenographer, working in many different environments from major opera houses and theatres through to prisons, churches & industrial spaces. His work is transformational, highly atmospheric and, where relevant, always music driven. He has received awards for his work including a Gold Medal and the joint Golden Triga National Award as part of the British entry at the Prague Quadrenniale International Exhibition of Scenography. 

 

Ian has also worked in Education and Community theatre as well as being a consultant and lecturer in Theatre Design at the Leeds University Drama faculty. He also has a strong technical theatre background. 

 

In tandem with his live performance work, Ian is also a fine artist who has exhibited in London, as well as being an accomplished photographer, film maker, video artist and interior designer. He has worked in several schools teaching creative skills for theatre, film and photography to children aged three to eighteen, where entries won the Schools' Gold Medal for Photography three years in a row.

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His recent work includes Lighting Designer for the Wexford Opera Festival, Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi & The Pilgrim's Progress for the Royal Northern College of Music and Scenography for The Marriage of Figaro at The Dublin Music Conservatory and Thea Musgrave's opera A Christmas Carol at Trinity Laban in London as part of the Women in Music season.

In 2022 he was Lighting Designer for the Qatar Airline's World Cup airport fan zones in Doha.

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Member of:    The Society of British Theatre Designers

                    The Royal Society of Musicians

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