Resonance residency highlights: Jonas Jones

Opera North's Resonance residencies offer time, space, and resources to professional music-makers from the Global Majority, working in any genre and based in the North of England.
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Jonas Jones, who has written and produced music under the name Stolen Velour for the last three years. delves into the esoteric realms of the online experimental club scene. His sonic journey revolves around sound design, genre-bending and digital aesthetics:
"This residency was an opportunity to explore more vocal-focused electronic music after making primarily instrumental club music. In particular, I explored bringing new works to life in a live context, using a combination of live instrumentation with electronic processing to explore dynamic interplays between the acoustic and digital worlds.
"The residency was an enriching and world expanding experience through which I was able to develop both my creative and practical abilities in a context that has previously been inaccessible to me. Being able to lift financial, status, and discriminatory barriers through this residency meant I had the means and creative control to bring to life my vision in full, on my own terms, and to a high-level. The most valuable part to me was being able to gain through this a new confidence to explore working in similar contexts for future projects going forward, with less fear and imposter syndrome.
"This residency meant I was able to affirm myself as a more multidimensional musician, songwriter, and composer. I was able to break out of the label of just club music producer, and fully enter and embrace a new medium, which allows for a more rich and nuanced expression of my identity. As a person I have always lacked the confidence, and have often not been taking serious when I have expressed a desire to take on more ambitious projects and take on roles through which there is typically a lack of representations of people like myself. Not only opportunity the residency itself, but also kindness, support and encouragement people involved have taken me one step closer to seeing myself "real musician". I now also have a concrete piece of audio-visual evidence that I can take forward, as well as the credibility of having done the residency to take forward and use to hopefully open up more opportunities, and help release the works in to world."
Jonas Jones aka Stolen Velour (Lead, Piano)
Florence RJ aka Floco (Violin)
Emily Thomas aka Aria S.L. (Vocals & Keys)
Polly Virr (Cello)
Mike Cunningham (Marimba)
Opera North is a PRS Foundation Talent Development Partner supported by PPL.