Broadcasting, Writing, Curation
Peter joined BBC Radio 3 as a Next Generation Voice in 2019. He has written and presented for programmes including Essential Classics and Inside Music.
His areas of specialism encompass classical vocal performance, suppressed art, and social history. Two of his authored BBC Radio 3 Essay series are available on BBC Sounds: In Their Voices, a five-part exploration of great 20th century singers, and Discovering Black Portraiture, a series based on his own visual art and research. In Their Voices was named critics’ pick of the week in The Sunday Times, The Telegraph and BBC Music Magazine, and was shortlisted in the Storytelling category of the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards 2021. His documentary Rebel Sounds: Musical Resistance in Barbados aired in January 2023.
Peter’s knowledge of both historical and contemporary music makes him in demand as an arts commentator for such programmes as BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and Loose Ends. He also features as a specialist on the network’s Black Music in Europe series.
Peter is a prominent speaker for panels on equity, inclusion, and restorative justice in the arts. He has taken part in live-streamed conversations presented by the National Gallery, London, the National Portrait Gallery, London, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, University College London, Yale University’s Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and others. He is also regularly engaged as a speaker for high schools in the UK and North America.
His writing has appeared in print and online for major UK publications including The Guardian and The Independent. His book Rediscovering Black Portraiture was published by Getty Publications in Spring 2023.
In 2024, he curates Mischief in the Archives at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Told through archival documents, personal items, and reflections, the pop-up exhibition illuminates the interconnected stories of three of his ancestors, whose lives intersected amid the grim reality of slavery in 18th-century Barbados.
BBC Radio 3
In Their Voices
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite shares his passion for five very different singers whose voices, artistry and lives inspire and move him, and whose stories he needs to tell.
Rebel Sounds: Musical Resistance in Barbados
Opera singer Peter Brathwaite travels to the land of his ancestors to discover the music of enslaved people in Barbados, as seen through the lens of his own family's history.
Discovering Black Portraiture
As part of Black History Month on BBC Radio 3, Peter explores five of his portrait recreations in depth, digging deeper into the stories of the black people he has brought to life. He also shares discoveries he has made about himself, his Barbadian heritage and ancestry, through the processes of researching and recreating each portrait.
Writing
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Robert McFerrin Snr made opera history. Why did I not know him?
The Guardian
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Celebrating degenerate music and fighting the fascists - in a blue dress
The Guardian
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Songs of exiles: rescuing ‘degenerate music’ from the shadows
The Guardian
Curation
In 2024, Peter has partnered with the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford for a new pop-up exhibition, Mischief in the Archives. The display aims to engage audiences with a humanising perspective on history and ancestry. It challenges preconceived racialized narratives and restores dignity to those the archives have long muted.