Deal Festival announces new artistic director Matthew Rose

East Kent summer arts festival, Deal Music and Arts (DMA) has announced the appointment of bass Matthew Rose to the role of artistic director. Rose will join general manager Willie Cooper as part of the festival’s leadership team at the beginning of next month.

Rose will join DMA in time to begin planning next year’s festival, which will mark five decades of DMA. Rose will also work with education director Peter Cook to support the organisation’s music education programme.

Christopher Cook, DMA’s chair of trustees, said: ‘[Rose’s] commitment to the arts in these troubled days will bring innovation and commitment to the festival, helping to rethink our relationships with the diverse communities that we serve in East Kent… his passion for education fits our work in local schools like a hand slipping into a well-made glove.’

This new role will continue alongside Rose’s opera career. He has sung regularly at the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, and English National Opera as well as at Glyndebourne, Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals.

Born in Brighton, studied at Piladelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music before joining the Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House in 2003. His career took off in 2006 with his Glyndebourne Festival debut in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for which he received the John Christie Award.

Rose’s experience of launching his own festival, Matthew Rose and Friends, in 2012 will support him in his new role, as will experience in additional previous roles including artist in residence at Trinity Laban, artistic advisor to Blackheath Halls in London and artistic advisor to the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Programme. 
 
Rose said: ‘We want to cater for as wide a group of people as possible… so let's give people a range of things that will pique their interest.' He added: 'Walking through Deal I’ve seen so many lovely spaces that have caught my imagination – in the castle, on the pier and the seafront - the palette of places to perform and for the arts to be, is enormous.’