Over the last two decades, Solange has built an expansive career that knows no bounds.
Under the auspices of Saint Heron — the multidisciplinary institution she started in 2013 — the Grammy-winning artist and curator has fearlessly dove into the worlds of music, choreography, design, architecture, visual art and more. Most recently, Saint Heron launched a free library in hopes of preserving rare Black and brown literature and making it accessible to others.
Now, Solange Knowles is bringing her expertise to the USC Thornton School of Music, where she has been named the school’s first all-school scholar in residence. Working across all areas of the school — whose instruction offerings include pop music, arts leadership and the music industry — Solange will also join the Dean’s Creative Vanguard Program. (She’s the second member to be invited to the distinguished program, following her frequent collaborator, Raphael Saadiq, who joined in December.)
For Solange, whose work is deeply rooted in research, taking on this role feels like “a culmination of the many practices” she has embodied throughout her career, she said.
“I am a GED graduate,” Solange told The 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.”
She added: “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.”
Solange announced her residency on Monday during a sold-out talk at USC featuring Thornton School of Music Dean Jason King and Saint Heron collaborators Shantel Aurora, Diane “Shabazz” Varnie and Sablā Stays.
Solange’s custom-designed, three-year residency, which kicks off this week, will focus on working with Thornton leadership to develop the school’s first curricular and programmatic offerings in the field of music curation — a fast-growing area of the music industry that includes creative directors, documentary filmmakers, DJs and people who work in experimental design, King said.
Solange is slated to teach a class at the school in collaboration with Saint Heron, King and faculty that will “explore the process of constructing curatorial frameworks alongside the context, craft and creation of musical landscapes,” according to USC. The class is tentatively titled “Records of Discovery: Methodologies for Music and Cultural Curatorial Practices” and will launch in fall 2027. (The course will formally be announced closer to its launch, according to USC.)
In her new role, Solange will also curate student-focused conversations and workshops with members of her Saint Heron team including one surrounding “The Making of Eldorado Ballroom,” the acclaimed series she brought to Walt Disney Concert Hall in October 2024. Additionally, she will participate in USC’s forthcoming symposium, where she will discuss women in classical work and the work of Julia Perry.
Although Solange has worked with other universities in the past, she says that now was the best timing for her to do the residency.
“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,” says Solange who released her first album “Solo” 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.”
She adds, “Being able to help students navigate what that is for them is like a dream job.”
King, a longtime fan of Solange’s work, says he thinks she is the best person to teach music curation at the school because of her ability to create worlds as she’s done via Saint Heron and through albums like “When I Get Home” (2019) and “A Seat at the Table” (2016).
“I think the work that she does as a music curator is very singular and very unique, so I’m hoping that she’s going to bring that uniqueness into the classroom and [her] programming,” says King who served on the board of the Lena Horne Town Hall Prize that gave its inaugural award to Knowles in February 2020. “I think she herself will be a model for how to do this kind of work and to do it differently.”
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