It is with great sadness that we announce that our deeply loved colleague, Anna Picard, Head of Communications and Insight at Opera Holland Park, has died.
Anna joined Opera Holland Park in 2017 and became an enormously valued part of our organisation. Her intelligence, warmth, wit and deep love of music touched all of us who had the privilege of working alongside her, and her loss will be felt profoundly across our company.
Before joining Opera Holland Park, Anna worked in the field of early music before moving into journalism. From 2000 to 2013, she was Classical Music Critic of The Independent on Sunday, before joining The Times in 2013. She was also a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and BBC Radio 3’s Record Review.
Anna brought extraordinary knowledge, insight and care to everything she did, but above all, we will remember her as a cherished colleague and friend. She was deeply loved, and we will miss her more than words can say.
All of us at Opera Holland Park send our love and deepest condolences to Anna’s family and friends. We ask that their privacy is respected at this very difficult time.
“I cannot find words to express just how much I loved Anna as a colleague and a friend. But that is just one of the reasons why I adored having Anna working with us here at Opera Holland Park: she could find the right words for everything. As her friend Tim Ashley said earlier – she was a poet among music critics.
But most of all I will miss the conversations and the laughs: the hours of putting the classical music world to rights, the shared memories and the casual literary references that I would then need to go and look up. And I will miss the dreaming.
All love to you Anna.” – James Clutton
