Lindy Hume, Artistic Director of Ten Days on the Island, is one of Australia’s leading directors, acknowledged internationally for fresh interpretations of a wide variety of repertoire, and for progressive artistic leadership of international festivals including Sydney Festival (2010-2012) and Perth International Arts Festival (2004-2007). She has been Artistic Director of West Australian Opera (1992-96), Victoria State Opera and then OzOpera (1996-2001), and most recently Opera Queensland 2012-2017.

As a director, she has created more than 50 major opera productions across Australasia. In Europe she has directed productions includind La bohème (Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin), which was telecast live throughout Europe. She made her American debut with The Barber of Seville at Houston Grand Opera; and in recent years she has directed new productions for Seattle Opera, San Diego Opera, Leipzig Opera, Royal Opera Stockholm, New Zealand Opera, Pinchgut Opera, West Australian Opera, Opera Queensland and in 2021, Welsh National Opera.

Lindy is recognised as a champion of new Australian work across a range of genres. As Artistic Director of OzOpera, she commissioned award-winning screen operas with ABC TV, and major Australian works including Paul Grabowsky’s Love in the Age of Therapy and Richard Mills’ Batavia (with Opera Australia and the Melbourne Centenary of Federation Festival) which won the Helpmann and Green Room Awards for Best Director and Best Production. She commissioned and directed Mills/ Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale was one of several new creations for Perth International Arts Festival within the award-winning Wesfarmers Arts Commissions series.

New Australian work, a focus on contemporary Indigenous culture, regional identity and celebration of local communities were fortes of her tenure at Perth International Arts Festival 2004-2007. Lindy’s 2010 Sydney Festival won 5 Helpmann Awards including Best New Australian Work for Smoke & Mirrors (Sydney Festival in partnership with Spiegeltent International), Best Major Event (Festival First Night), and Best Classical or Orchestral Concert (Oedipus Rex/Symphony of Psalms). Lindy’s Sydney Festivals were recognised for their cultural diversity and included in 2012 Black Capital, a major celebration of Redfern.

The recipient of an Australia Council Theatre Board Fellowship, Hume holds a Graduate Diploma in Arts Administration from the University of South Australia. In 2007, she was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by The University of Western Australia in recognition of her contribution to the cultural life of Western Australia.

Lindy has served as Chair of South East Arts for 6 years until 2014, and on the board of Regional Arts NSW. She served on the Australia Council’s Major Performing Arts Board (2008-2011). She served on the boards of Festival of Voices in Tasmania (2015-17) and NORPA in Lismore (2017-18).

Lindy’s commitment to seeing the arts flourish in regional Australia is well known, most recently expressed in her 2017 Currency House Platform Paper Restless Giant: Changing Cultural Values in Regional Australia. Public interest in her idea of developing an assertive counter-urban arts practice has now led her to develop her ideas into her PhD research exploring the working life of artists in regional Australia; and how work made by artists living in regional Australia flows into the national and global cultural ecologies. She is currently a PhD candidate at QUT and was recently appointed Creative Director for the Four Winds Festivals 2021-2022 in Bermagui.