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Eccles Hay Writer's Award Peter Brathwaite

Peter Brathwaite FRSA CF Hon DMus is a British baritone opera singer, broadcaster, music columnist for a selection of United Kingdom newspapers, and a developer of music programming.[1][2] He is also known for his recreations of Black portraits in art as part of the Getty Museum online "challenge" for re-creation of art works, begun in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.[3]

Education and background

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Brathwaite's mother, a nurse, emigrated from Barbados to England to work for the National Health Service.[4] Born in Manchester, Brathwaite was educated at Bury Grammar School, a private school for boys in the market town of Bury in Greater Manchester. From the age of eight he sang as a boy treble in the choir of St Ann’s Church, Manchester. In his teens he sang with The National Youth Choirs of Great Britain. He was a gap year choral scholar at Truro Cathedral.[5] Brathwaite earned a first in Fine Art and Philosophy at Newcastle University. He received his master’s from the Royal College of Music postgraduate vocal studies course, before completing the Artist Diploma in Opera at the Royal College of Music International Opera School.[6][7][8] After the Royal College, he trained at the Flanders Opera Studio, Ghent.[9]

He is distantly related to the Barbadian poet and academic Edward Kamau Brathwaite.[10] His ancestor Richard Brathwaite coined the term “computer”.[11]

Performance

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In the UK, Brathwaite has sung for companies including The Royal Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Opera North, English Touring Opera, Opera Holland Park and Edinburgh International Festival. Outside the UK he has sung for La Monnaie, Munich Biennale, Opéra national de Lorraine, Théâtre de Caen, Nederlandse Reisopera, Opéra de Lyon, Danish National Opera and at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie de Paris and Philharmonie Luxembourg.[12][13]

In 2018, he developed the show Effigies of Wickedness (Songs banned by the Nazis) in collaboration with English National Opera and the Gate Theatre.[14] The cabaret-style show explored the Weimar era music banned by the Nazi regime.[15][16] He has also given recitals using the works of the Entartete Musik ("degenerate music") exhibition.[17][18] Brathwaite made his Royal Opera debut in 2019 singing various roles in the world premiere of Jules Maxwell’s The Lost Thing.[19] The following season, he returned to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for his main stage debut singing the role of Martin Carter in Hannah Kendall’s one man opera The Knife of Dawn.[20][21] In 2021, he created the role of Joey in the world premiere of Kris Defoort’s opera The Time of Our Singing for La Monnaie, Brussels.[22] Brathwaite created the role of Narrator in Wolf Witch Giant Fairy, a devised collaboration between The Royal Opera and Little Bulb. The show ran in the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre from December 2021 to January 2022.[23] Wolf Witch Giant Fairy won the 2022 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Family Show.[24] In May 2022, Brathwaite made his debut at the Munich Biennale singing the role of Paul in the world premiere of Ann Cleare's opera The Little Lives with Ensemble Musikfabrik.[25] In September 2022 he sang the role of Stubb in Netia Jones' realisation of Olga Neuwirth's The Outcast at the Philharmonie de Paris, with Matthias Pintscher conducting Ensemble intercontemporain and the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris.[26] In January 2023, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden announced Insurrection: A Work in Progress, a series of semi-staged sharings co-developed by and featuring Brathwaite. The work in development charts the story of rebellion and resistance in Barbados.[27][28] In 2024, he reprised the role of Paul in a new production of Ann Cleare's The Little Lives, directed by Jiří Nekvasil and conducted by Bruno Ferrandis at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre for the New Opera Days Festival in association with the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre.[29]

Concert appearances have included Britten's Canticles at Leeds Lieder Festival[30] with Mark Padmore, Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton, and Mozart arias with Tonu Kaljuste and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in Tallinn.[31]

Brathwaite has been a guest lecturer at the music department of Goldsmiths, University of London.[32]

Black portraiture

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His series of photographs, Rediscovering Black Portraiture, began as part of the online Getty Museum Challenge to recreate works of art.[33][34] He began the work because he saw few recreations using Black subjects.[35] In a series of self-portraits, Brathwaite reimagined portraits of Black subjects in art history.[36][37] He produced one recreated artwork each day for 50 days.[10] His recreations use modern objects, and result in a commentary and re-portrayal of the subjects, especially of their presentation as servants or enslaved people.[38]

Eleven of the works were exhibited on King’s College London’s Strand Campus in an exhibition entitled Visible Skin: Rediscovering the Renaissance through Black Portraiture.[39] In a review of this show for The Times, Jade Cuttle noted: "These mirror images with their uncanny resemblances traverse space and time, spotlighting the black lives that have been silenced by the canon of western art, while also inviting us to interrogate the present."[40]

Brathwaite's re-creation of Portrait of an African, attributed to Allan Ramsay, is featured in a film produced for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum exhibition In Plain Sight: Transatlantic Slavery & Devon.[41] In April 2023, Brathwaite opened an exhibition of portrait re-creations, interventions and sound installations at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery and the Georgian House, Bristol.[42] The solo exhibition transferred to The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum, Bedford in April 2024.[43] A solo exhibition of Brathwaite's works, notably his reimagining of Agostino Brunias' Barbados Mulatto Girl, ran from July 2023 to January 2024 at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.[44][45]

In 2024, Historic Royal Palaces commissioned a new Rediscovering Black Portraiture photograph for Untold Lives, an exhibition at Kensington Palace highlighting the overlooked people who ran royal palaces over 300 years ago. Brathwaite's commissioned work focused on expanding Black identities from the walls of the King's Staircase, painted by William Kent.[46]

Brathwaite's 2020 reimagining of a portrait by Alexandre François Girardin, likely depicting Toussaint L'Ouverture (1804), is on digital display in Room 10 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery as part of an in-gallery film about Toussaint L'Ouverture.[47] In autumn 2024, the National Portrait Gallery released an ‘Artist in Focus’ film featuring a behind-the-scenes look at his artistic process and how he uses everyday objects to connect the past with the present.[48]

Brathwaite's reimagining of Portrait of an African Man, a painting by the Dutch Renaissance painter Jan Mostaert, was acquired for the renewed permanent collections of the Museum Hof van Busleyden in Mechelen.[49]

Writing and broadcasting

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He writes music and art-related columns for The Guardian and The Independent.[50] Brathwaite has authored and narrated the BBC Radio 3 Time Travellers podcast.[51][52] His BBC Radio 3 series Discovering Black Portraiture focuses on five of his portrait recreations.[53] In October 2021, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden presented Storytelling in opera, a live panel discussion curated by Peter Brathwaite and featuring American tenor Lawrence Brownlee.[54] Peter Brathwaite presented BBC Radio 3's Inside Music in December 2021.[55] His audio essay series for BBC Radio 3, In Their Voices, on five singers from whom he has drawn inspiration, was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society award for storytelling.[56][57] Brathwaite's BBC Radio 3 documentary Rebel Sounds sees him travel to the land of his ancestors to discover the music of enslaved people in Barbados, as seen through the lens of his own family's history.[58][59]

Brathwaite's book Rediscovering Black Portraiture was published in April 2023 by Getty Publications, the publishing arm of the J. Paul Getty Trust. The book collects more than fifty of his portrait recreations and includes contributions by Cheryl Finley, Temi Odumosu, and Mark Sealy.[60] Writing in The Art Newspaper, Gareth Harris stated: "The book arguably reclaims Black history and art."[61] In a New York Times article on artists redefining Black history, Brathwaite was noted for his “scholarly sense of deadpan.” His book Rediscovering Black Portraiture was highlighted for its reimaginings, where he “traverses history by dropping himself into Rococo portraits.”[62]

In April 2024, The Bookseller announced that Chatto & Windus had won Brathwaite’s family history of Barbados, Not All of Me Will Die, in a four-way auction. Scheduled for publication in 2026/27, the memoir delves into the 1816 rebellion of enslaved people on the island, as experienced by Brathwaite’s ancestors.[63] Peter Brathwaite was named as one of the 2025 winners of the Eccles Institute and Hay Festival Global Writer’s Award, in a reception at the British Library on Wednesday 4 December 2024.[64]

Awards and honours

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References

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  1. ^ "About". Peter Brathwaite. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
  2. ^ a b "PETER BRATHWAITE".
  3. ^ "BBC Radio 3 - The Essay - Five amazing lockdown recreations of black people from historical portraits". BBC. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
  4. ^ Brathwaite, Peter (29 May 2018). "Celebrating degenerate music and fighting the fascists - in a blue dress". The Guardian.
  5. ^ Beale, Robert (25 January 2016). "Brathwaite to sing music banned by the Nazis at Manchester Jewish Museum". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  6. ^ "Peter Brathwaite: baritone, advocate, artist". www.rcm.ac.uk. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
  7. ^ "An Interview with British baritone Peter Brathwaite". blackhistorymonth.org.uk. 4 May 2020. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  8. ^ "Peter Brathwaite Baritone". LinkedIn.
  9. ^ "IN CONVERSATION: PETER BRATHWAITE AND MICHAEL HAAS".
  10. ^ a b Higgins, Charlotte (16 December 2021). "Peter Brathwaite: 'I'm taking it into my own hands to tell stories of our shared history'". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  11. ^ "Richard Brathwaite". Twitter.
  12. ^ "Peter Brathwaite — People — Royal Opera House". www.roh.org.uk. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
  13. ^ "Peter Brathwaite BARITONE".
  14. ^ Cairns, Dan (17 May 2018). "Theatre Review: Effigies of Wickedness". The Times. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  15. ^ "Effigies of Wickedness, review: A remarkable cabaret of 'degenerate' songs banned by the Nazis". The Independent. 21 May 2018. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
  16. ^ Hitchings, Henry (16 May 2018). "Effigies of Wickedness is a cabaret with a cause". www.standard.co.uk. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
  17. ^ Kretchmer, Harry (5 February 2016). "Degenerate Music at the Manchester Jewish Museum". Northern Soul. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  18. ^ White, Michael (2 May 2016). "Jewish centre JW3 revives music banned by the Nazis on Yom Hashoah". Hampstead Highgate Express. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  19. ^ "Peter Brathwaite — People — Royal Opera House". www.roh.org.uk. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  20. ^ Bratby, Richard. "A new opera that deserves more than one outing: Royal Opera's New Dark Age reviewed | The Spectator". www.spectator.co.uk. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
  21. ^ Allison, John (25 October 2020). "New Dark Age, Royal Opera House review: a groundbreaking line-up of female composers". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  22. ^ "Alla Monnaie The time of our singing". Il giornale della musica (in Italian). Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  23. ^ Jeal, Erica. "Wolf Witch Giant Fairy Review". The Guardian.
  24. ^ "Winners of the 2022 Olivier Awards". The Independent. 10 April 2022. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022.
  25. ^ "MUNICH BIENNALE | FESTIVAL FOR NEW MUSIC THEATER".
  26. ^ "The Outcast".
  27. ^ "British opera singer creates work to reveal humanity of enslaved ancestor". The Guardian.
  28. ^ "Press Release" (PDF). Royal Opera House.
  29. ^ "The Little Lives, Ann Cleare".
  30. ^ Maddocks, Fiona (26 June 2021). "The week in classical: Colin Currie; La bohème; Leeds Lieder festival – review". The Observer. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
  31. ^ "NEW YEAR'S EVE CONCERT AND NEW YEAR'S CONCERT OF HENNESSY AND EESTI KONTSERT | ERSO". Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  32. ^ "Opera Works".
  33. ^ "Meet The Opera Singer Reframing Black Portraiture - Culture". Country and Town House. 15 September 2020. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  34. ^ "Rediscovering Black Portraiture - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  35. ^ Korda, Andrea; Leighton, Mary Elizabeth; Warne, Vanessa (September 2022). "CURRENTS | SEPTEMBER 2022 REFLECTION | TEACHING WITH THE GETTY MUSEUM CHALLENGE REFLECTION Teaching with the Getty Museum Challenge in Humanities Classrooms" (PDF). Currents in Teaching and Learning. 14 (1): 21–22. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
  36. ^ "La challenge artistica di Peter Brathwaite contro il razzismo". Sky Arte - Sky (in Italian). 11 June 2020. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  37. ^ "En reproduisant des peintures en photos, Peter Brathwaite rend hommage aux modèles noirs". Konbini Arts - Photographie et arts sans filtre par Konbini (in French). Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  38. ^ Migdol, Erin (27 May 2020). "Rediscovering Black Portraiture through the Getty Museum Challenge". www.getty.edu. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  39. ^ "King's and opera singer Peter Brathwaite launch new outdoor exhibition". www.kcl.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  40. ^ Cuttle, Jade (30 October 2021). "From opera to art: baritone Peter Brathwaite unveils new show celebrating black portraiture". The Times.
  41. ^ "Portrait of an African" (PDF).
  42. ^ "Peter Brathwaite: Rediscovering Black Portraiture". Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
  43. ^ "The opera singer giving black 'commodities' a voice".
  44. ^ "Rediscovering Black Portraiture".
  45. ^ "Barbadians are using dance, art and history to mark Emancipation Day on August 1".
  46. ^ "Untold Lives: A Palace At Work".
  47. ^ "Person in focus: Toussaint L'Ouverture".
  48. ^ "Artist in Focus: Peter Brathwaite".
  49. ^ "Press Kit Museum Hof van Busleyden" (PDF).
  50. ^ a b York, University of. "An evening with Peter Brathwaite". University of York. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  51. ^ "BBC Radio 3 - Time Travellers, Four glorious eccentrics". BBC. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  52. ^ "BBC Radio 3 - Time Travellers, Slave songs, pit songs, songs in dark times". BBC. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  53. ^ "BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Discovering Black Portraiture". BBC. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  54. ^ "Insights: Storytelling in Opera".
  55. ^ "Inside Music".
  56. ^ "RPS Awards: Storytelling". Royal Philharmonic Society. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  57. ^ "English National Opera's trailblazing Covid-19 projects lead the 2021 RPS Awards shortlists". Classical Music. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  58. ^ "Rebel Sounds: Musical Resistance in Barbados". bbc.co.uk.
  59. ^ "Rebel Sounds: Musical Resistance in Barbados". The Voice.
  60. ^ "Rediscovering Black Portraiture (Hardback)". Waterstones.
  61. ^ "Opera singer Peter Brathwaite tells us why he reinterpreted Black portraiture using household items". The Art Newspaper.
  62. ^ "Sick of the 21st Century? These Artists Revive the 18th".
  63. ^ "Chatto wins Peter Brathwaite's family history of Barbados in four-way auction".
  64. ^ "The Eccles Institute & Hay Festival Global Writer's Award".
  65. ^ "Peter Brathwaite". www.churchillfellowship.org. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  66. ^ "Bursary Recipients". Opera Awards. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  67. ^ "New Genesis Kickstart Fund grants offer financial support to over 190 Creative Freelancers". Genesis Foundation. 13 September 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  68. ^ "Royal Philharmonic Society Awards 2021: shortlists announced". Classical Music. 28 September 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  69. ^ "Wolf Witch Giant Fairy".
  70. ^ "Leading figures recognised with honorary degrees".
  71. ^ "Eccles Institute & Hay Festival Global Writer's Award goes to Peter Brathwaite and Joseph Zárate".
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