Hilde Roos

Hilde Roos is a music and opera researcher.

Biography

She is the General Manager of Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation (AOI) at Stellenbosch University and her work focuses on historical and contemporary representations of opera in Southern Africa with special reference to the intersection of the genre with politics and race.

She has published widely about the Eoan Group, a so-called coloured opera group who performed opera during the Apartheid period, and other aspects of opera and musical theatre in South Africa.

Her publications include EOAN – Our Story (2013); The La Traviata Affair – Opera in the Age of Apartheid (2018), African Theatre – Opera and Music Theatre (co-editor, 2020), “Sorry. I am what I am.” The life and letters of the South African pianist and opera coach Gordon Jephtas (1943–92) (2023).

Hilde is also a founder member of the Black Opera Research Network (BORN), an international network of scholars that engage with conversations on the history, experiences, politics and practices of Black Opera.