Omar SHAHRYAR

Omar is an award-winning composer, educator, and peace-maker working for opera companies and arts festivals around the world. His internationally acclaimed opera, A Shoe Full of Stars, about young people’s reactions to extremism, won the YAMAward Prize for Best Opera for Young People 2018 and was reported on by UK national news programmes. Since 2008, Omar has led music outreach projects for some of the world’s leading opera companies and concert halls, including Glyndebourne, Royal Opera, the Wigmore Hall, Britten Sinfonia and Streetwise Opera. He has led artist training for the Royal Opera House of Norway and the Royal Opera House of Oman.
Omar is the Artistic Director of Opera Schmopera, an opera company for young people, and a board member for Tête-à-tête Opera Company and the European Network of Opera, Music and Dance Education (RESEO).
In 2020 Omar will complete his PhD thesis in the Composition of Opera for Young People at the University of York funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Photo credit: Len Grant