Peter Brathwaite

Brathwaite's mother, a nurse, emigrated from Barbados. Brathwaite is distantly related to the Barbadian poet Edward Kamau Brathwaite.[3] Born in Manchester, Brathwaite attended Bury Grammar School. 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.[4] Brathwaite earned a first in Fine Art and Philosophy at Newcastle University and later proceeded to study singing at the Royal College of Music in London.[5][6]

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, Nederlandse Reisopera, Opéra de Lyon, Danish National Opera and at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Philharmonie Luxembourg.[7]

In 2018, he developed the show Effigies of Wickedness (Songs banned by the Nazis) in collaboration with English National Opera and the Gate Theatre.[8] The cabaret-style show explored the Weimar era music banned by the Nazi regime.[9][10] He has also given recitals using the works of the Entartete Musik ("degenerate music") exhibition.[11][12] Brathwaite made his Royal Opera debut in 2019 singing various roles in the world premiere of Jules Maxwell’s The Lost Thing.[13] 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.[14][15] 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.[16] Brathwaite sang the role of Narrator in Wolf Witch Giant Fairy, a 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.[17]

Concert appearances have included Britten's Canticles at Leeds Lieder Festival[18] with Mark Padmore, Iestyn Davies and Joseph Middleton, and Mozart arias with Tonu Kaljuste and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in Tallinn.[19]

His series of photographs, Rediscovering Black Portraiture, began as part of the online Getty Museum Challenge to recreate works of art.[20][21] In a series of self-portraits, Brathwaite reimagined portraits of Black subjects in art history.[22][23] He produced one recreated art each day for 50 days.[3] 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.[24]

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.[25] 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.”[26]

He writes music and art-related columns for The Guardian and The Independent.[27] Brathwaite has authored and narrated the BBC Radio 3 Time Travellers podcast.[28][29] His BBC Radio 3 series Discovering Black Portraiture focuses on five of his portrait recreations.[30] 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.[31][32]

• 2004: Churchill Fellowship[33]
• 2016: International Opera Awards bursary recipient[34]
• 2021: Genesis Foundation Kickstart Fund recipient (Music)[35]
• 2021: Shortlisted for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award[36]

• Rediscovering Black Portraiture
• "In Their Voices" at BBC Radio 3