Working in genres from folk, jazz and soul to electronic club and improvisation, and rooted in traditional music, Asian artists, Balraj Samrai and Satnam Galsian have joined Ellen Beth Abdi, Rory A Green and Jonas Jones as the latest artists to be awarded an Opera North Resonance residency starting later this month.
Resonance offers time, space, and resources to professional music-makers from the Global Majority, working in any genre and based in the north of England. It seeks to develop talent by enabling them to take their work in new directions, to experiment with collaborators and fresh ideas, and to try out the results in front of audiences. Each artist spends a week in Leeds, with the sole remit of exploring a project of their choice in workshops and work-in-progress performances.
Marking its seventh year in 2024, the scheme already boasts an impressive legacy: several alumni, including Testament and Hannabiell Sanders, have gone on to secure major commissions, sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun is Opera North’s current Artist in Residence following his work as composer, co-music director and soloist on the acclaimed cross-cultural opera Orpheus, while Abel Selaocoe, a 2020 Resonance recipient, composed the popular Leeds As You Are soundwalk as part of LEEDS 2023 Year of Culture.
Expressing herself after being awarded the residency, Satnam said, "I am extremely pleased to have been awarded one of the Opera North Resonance residencies as it means that I will have the time, space and funding to research and develop my project idea, and to collaborate with other creatives to bring it to fruition."
Balraj on the other hand expressed, "Being awarded an Opera North Residency means a great deal as I'll be able to dedicate a week to experimentation and exploration of my creative ideas involving electronic production, vocals, south Asian percussion and beyond."
This year’s lead artists are set to use their musical talents to explore issues such as social justice, race, identity, gender, migration and how the past continues to impact the present.
