Professor Edward Venn announced as Opera North’s Academic in Residence (2022-23)
The residency will result in him spending a year at the company bringing together diverse voices from all areas of the performing arts and academia for a series of discussions and events.
Professor Venn’s residency will also include the facilitation of an exhibition focusing on race, ethics and representation in operatic storytelling.
The programme of activity will begin on Thursday 6 October with a webinar, Telling Operatic Stories: Race, Ethics and Authenticity, as part of Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute’s Sadler Series. The overall programme is also part of Opera North’s DARE collaboration with the University of Leeds.
Telling Operatic Stories: Race, Ethics and Authenticity is open to all and includes a public Q&A. The Zoom event from 4.30–6pm will shape the course of five further seminars in the Series examining opera’s often unedifying historical attitudes to non-western or minority cultures.
The panel includes musicologist and cultural historian Assistant Professor Imani Mosley (School of Music, University of Florida), Matthew Kofi Waldren, conductor and co-founder of Your Turn Collective, which works in support of classical music creators from under-represented backgrounds, and academics from across the University of Leeds.
