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, 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, he launched the international campaign With One Voice, which scaled the same charity idea to the global level.
At the lecture, 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.
