Solange named Scholar-in-Residence at USC Thornton School of Music

Solange is named USC Thornton’s first Scholar-in-Residence, joining the Dean’s Creative Vanguard program. Recognized as a Grammy-winning artist, she is a true multi-hyphenate whose work explores music, choreography, design, architecture, visual art and more. Most recently, free libraries to conserve rare black and brown literature were launched through her multidisciplinary institution Saint Heron.

Solange announced her residency on Oct. 13 at a sold-out talk show with Thornton Dean Jason King and Saint Heron collaborators Shantel Aurora, Diane “Shabazz” Varnie and Sablā Stays. She elaborated on her mission at Thornton there. True to her expansive background, her custom-designed three-year residency will include working with Thornton leadership to develop first curricular and programmatic offerings in music curation, an interdisciplinary skill meshed into film, events, experimental design, branding and other mediums.

“For decades now, I’ve watched the evolution of music and music curation, and I feel like I have something adequate to add to the conversation,” said Solange, whose career started at 15. “I feel really inspired by the idea of my 15-year-old self being able to have someone sort of walk me through the footsteps of what I was about to embark on. So if I can, in any role, be a vessel of guidance, it really just sort of warms my heart that I am given the opportunity to be in that space.”

Solange Knowles’ scholar-in-residency not only represents what she’s learned since the beginning of her career; it’s a signifier of a full-circle academic journey.

“I am a GED graduate,” Solange told L.A. Times. “I was a teenage mom. I was pregnant with my son at 17, so I didn’t get to further my education in the classical sense. But I was really blessed and honored to have enriched these other parts of education through my art, through travel [and] through the globalization of my life.”

“So to be able to have access and broader tools as a scholar in residence, to enrich that and deepen that, is really so exciting for me.”

To learn more, read the L.A. Times article about the announcement here.

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Photo originally published online by the Los Angeles Times on October 14.