L’ORFEO to Rethink Operatic Pedagogies

L’ORFEO has recently been awarded a University of Leeds International Strategy Fund grant to develop work on ‘Rethinking Operatic Pedagogies’.

The opera industry is fast changing. Increased industry responses around the world to social movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, along with funders’ requirements for ‘relevance’ have created a shift in the demands placed on singers, directors, dramaturgs, administrators, and critics to keep pace with this change. This in turn has created an issue in the ‘talent pipeline’: how institutions educate the next generation of stakeholders in opera and equipped graduates to meet these changing demands.

The International Strategy Fund award will support cross-institutional collaborative partnership work with Gregory Camp (University of Auckland) and Jennifer Q. McGuire and Allison Chu (Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University) to develop collaboratively ways of responding to this educational challenge.

Edward Venn, Co-director of L’ORFEO with Katie Gardner, and lead researcher on the project, said, “Opera companies across the world are negotiating new artistic, social, and institutional pressures, and higher education must equip students not only to understand these conditions but to work creatively and critically within them. We are delighted to receive this funding, and for L’ORFEO to be working with such exciting partners. Together, we will investigate how opera pedagogies can be collaboratively re‑imagined to meet current and future challenges’.

The first event in this project will be a workshop, ‘Linguistics for Singers’, to be led by Gregory Camp at the University of Leeds on 11 November, 2-4pm.