January 29, 19:30
In 2002, former social worker and opera critic Matt Peacock founded Streetwise Opera, a charity that uses music and opera to help the homeless people return to normal life. He came up with the idea having read in a newspaper a quote from a British politician saying “the homeless are the people you step over when you’re coming out of the opera”. Starting with the production of The Little Prince in Covent Garden with a special homeless cast, Matt Peacock turned Streetwise Opera into a successful production company that rehabilitates declassed people across the UK and receives prestigious awards for opera performances. In 2012, during the Cultural Olympiad in London, Matt Peacock launched the international campaign With One Voice, which scaled the same charity idea to the global level.
At the lecture, Matt Peacock will talk about his experience producing impressive cultural projects from London to Tokyo, from Sierra Leone to Rio — projects that show how music and opera can help bring well-being, freedom of action and security to people that found themselves out in the street at some point in their lives.
Matt Peacock, MBE is Director of With One Voice, a movement aiming to connect and strengthen arts and homelessness projects around the world and advocating for the arts to be part of homelessness policy. WOV has worked globally from Tokyo to Bogotá, produced 40 events at Rio 2016 and successfully campaigned for the arts to be part of Manchester’s Homelessness Strategy. WOV was founded at Streetwise Opera, becoming independent in 2019 with 50% of the board and staff made up of people who are and have been homeless. Matt is a former support worker, Clore Leadership Fellow, Paul Hamlyn Breakthrough Fund recipient and founder of Streetwise Opera. He is one of Gordon Brown’s Everyday Heroes; one of Evening Standard’s Most Influential Londoners and a Southbank Centre Change Maker. He was awarded an MBE for services to music and homelessness in 2011.
Lecture will be delivered in English with simultaneous translation into Russian. Admission is free of charge, places are limited. Please, register in advance (link in Russian).
This lecture is part of the UK—Russia Year of Music 2019, a programme which celebrates the UK and Russia’s rich musical cultures and our profound respect for each other’s musical traditions and achievements. The UK—Russia Year of Music programme is conducted by the British Embassy in Moscow with the support of the British Council.
