Solange Knowles appointed first scholar in residence at USC Thornton School of Music

Solange Knowles is ready to share her knowledge with students at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where she’s been named its first scholar in residence, Los Angeles Times reports. As part of her three-year residency, she will teach, curate workshops and help develop the first music curation programs for the school’s curriculum.

Solange’s music curation class, tentatively called Records of Discovery: Methodologies for Music and Cultural Curatorial Practices, will kick off in fall 2027 and “explore the process of constructing curatorial frameworks alongside the context, craft and creation of musical landscapes,” USC tells the LA Times.

Solange will also discuss women in classical work as part of USC’s forthcoming symposium.

“I am a GED graduate. 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 tells the LA Times. “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 adds she’s inspired by the idea of her 15-year-old self having someone walk her “through the footsteps of what I was about to embark on” and is touched by the opportunity to “be a vessel of guidance” to students trying to find their own.

She joins inaugural member Raphael Saadiq as part of USC’s Creative Vanguard Program, where distinguished music artists and creative leaders contribute to the school through masterclasses, workshops and more.

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