Equart aims to overcome the barriers to professional work currently faced by talented visually impaired opera singers, by producing an electronic navigation system that provides access to the professional stage. We write, devise and produce productions cast from talented performers with disabilities.
Andrew Heggie was a baritone at the height of his career when he contracted a visual disorder in 2006. At that time he stood to lose his career in opera as no infrastructure existed in the opera industry to provide for the continuation of his career, onstage or backstage.
Equart was formed and a series of projects embarked on to research and develop assistive technological solutions to this problem. Having been awarded an Arts Council (ACE) grant to write and produce an opera for singers with disabilities (The Handless Maiden, 2007), the team then went on to develop assistive technology for singers with visual impairments, collaborating with conductor Paul Daniel and the Electronic Engineering department of University of London (The Baton project, 2008). The outcome of this and further research at Winchester University was a design for a navigation system for blind singers on stage, for which Equart were awarded the UK patent in 2010. The technology uses low frequency radio waves to guide a singer around the stage remotely. It is hoped that it will also be adapted to prevent falls for patients discharged early from hospital. |
Virginia de Ledesma, FRSM (project director)
Virginia de Ledesma is first and foremost an opera singer. Her career started in 1988, and changed direction unexpectedly on meeting Andrew Heggie, and learning about how his degenerative visual disorder was to affect his career. Following the successful application for an R&D grant from ACE in 2006, Virginia co-wrote and directed the Handless Maiden opera, the first opera in performance history to be written and produced for a cast of singers with disabilities. She continues to write and produce shows cast from visually impaired performers, and is currently running the ‘Tea with…’ series, the last of which, ‘Tea with Jane Eyre’ starred Susanna Mc Cleary, a talented blind soprano and violinist from Toronto. Virginia became a Fellow of the Royal Schools of Music in 2010. |
Charlotte Hardwick (secretary)
Charlotte studied singing under Cara Tivey at the Royal National College for the Blind. She was cast as ‘the white spirit’ in Equart’s ‘The Handless Maiden’, and went on to work with conductor Paul Daniel on the Baton Project at London University on assistive technology. She has been Equart’s secretary since 2009, and continues to work as a visually impaired professional soprano. |
Contact Equart at [email protected] mobile 07872 612856.