Margot Button - Artistic Director
Mezzo-soprano Margot is the person responsible for the artistic focus and structure of Toi Toi Opera.
Born in Christchurch, she began her singing career with a performance of 'Bessie the Black Cat' in Thora Lewin’s piano studio at the age of 5. The fate of Bessie in verse 4 was hugely traumatic and the performance ended in a flood of tears. She was not deterred however and went on to complete her postgraduate studies in Opera Performance at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee School of Music. The ‘Bessie’ experience ultimately proving invaluable as a mezzo’s onstage lot is rarely a happy one…
As a professional performer, educator and arts manager Margot has appeared as a soloist in opera, oratorio, and recital in New Zealand, Australia, England, and the USA. She has recorded for radio, television and film and spent her formative years singing in Canterbury Opera, Wellington City Opera, and New Zealand International Festival productions.
Margot spent two years training and singing in England and worked as a professional musician for nineteen years in the United States before returning the New Zealand in 2010. While in the USA she worked as a soloist throughout New England appearing regularly with groups such as the Boston Masterworks Chorale, ALEA III, Opera, Opera, and…more Opera!, Wordstage, VT Opera Theatre, Lost Nation Theatre, the American Contemporary Opera Project, and the Sky Meadow Trio. She directed and co-created the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony Opera for Harvard University and the Annals of Improbable Research for ten years. She is a former Executive Director of the Vergennes Opera House, and Development Director for the Barre Opera House and was an artist-educator and administrator for Brown Bag Opera for four years. She was on the teaching faculties of St. Michael’s College, the Flynn Theatre of the Performing Arts, the Monteverdi Music School, and taught for the Boston Conservatory and Longy School of Music Opera Departments.
Margot studied voice with Lorraine Nubar, and Elisabeth Phinney in the USA, Prof. Rae Woodland of the Royal College of Music in England, and Emily Mair, Head of Music, Victoria University, New Zealand. She has coached with a number of notable artists including Dalton Baldwin, Phyllis Curtain, Dame Janet Baker, Warren Jones, Prof. George Shirley, Cecelia Schieve, and Patricia Weinmann.
Since returning home to Christchurch Margot has appeared regularly as a soloist and presented a number of recitals. She conducted the ARA Jazzworks Choir and the Showbiz Vocal Studio for two years, and currently teaches itinerant voice at St. Andrew’s College and Hagley Community College. She also directs the Hagley Community College Secondary Choir and is a choral coach for the St Andrews College choral program. In addition she maintains a large professional private voice studio at the Piano in Christchurch. Margot regularly adjudicates for Regional Vocal Competitions and is an examiner for undergraduate and graduate vocal students at the University of Canterbury. She has been a member of the Freemasons Opera Chorus of New Zealand Opera since returning to New Zealand in 2010, and sang the role of Mrs Noye in NZO’s South Island production of Noye’s Fludde. She most recently sang the role of Mother and co-produced the St Andrew's College production of Amahl.
Margot is very excited to be part of the Toi Toi Opera team. She believes passionately in accessibility to the arts, particularly opera.