Resonance 2024: Meet the Artists

Working in genres from folk, jazz and soul to electronic club and improvisation, and rooted in traditional music from across Africa and Asia, Ellen Beth Abdi, Balraj Samrai, Rory A Green, Jonas Jones, and Satnam Galsian have been announced 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. Resonance is a PRS Foundation Talent Development Partner supported by PPL.

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.

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.

Balraj Samrai is a musician, DJ, facilitator and co-founder of Swing Ting and SEEN Magazine. Balraj originally worked with Opera North as part of the Resonance Lockdown Edition in 2020 combining South Asian sounds with electronic sonics.

In June last year, he released his debut album reflecting on the experience of first-generation Punjabis in the UK who were denied the chance to travel until their senior years. Balraj is keen to explore these themes further, turning the spotlight on the complexity of migrant experiences. Collaborating largely with other artists from Global Majority backgrounds, he hopes to adapt his residency project for live ensemble settings and compose new works featuring live and electronic sounds.

Listen to Balraj

Jonas Jones, who has written and produced music under the name Stolen Velour for the last three years, was discovered online by the Dirty Hit record label when he was just 18 years old. Delving into the esoteric realms of the online experimental club scene, his sonic journey revolves around sound design, genre-bending and digital aesthetics.

Of East African and mixed white heritage, Jonas will use his residency to shift his focus from music production to songwriting in the hope that, in so doing, he will inspire other people, especially those of mixed heritage or with complex identities, to be themselves and share their stories without fear.

Listen to Jonas

From January to April, each of these artists will be given free rehearsal space for a week in Leeds with a grant to cover fees and costs, and support and advice from technicians, producers and other specialists. They will also be given the option to give a work-in-progress performance at the end of their residency.

The Resonance scheme has been made possible by Opera North’s membership of the PRS Foundation’s network of Talent Development Partners. The UK’s leading funder of new music and talent development, PRS Foundation supports organisations working at the frontline of talent development with a broad range of individual music creators. This reflects PRS Foundation’s commitment to supporting composers and songwriters of all backgrounds and genres through direct investment or by helping organisations which nurture artists and promote their music.

Opera North is a PRS Foundation Talent Development Partner supported by PPL.