Givonna Joseph

Givonna Joseph is Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning OperaCréole. Her research on 19th-century New Orleans free classical and operatic composers of color and Creole history and heritage has been featured on CBS Saturday Morning, NBC Nightly News, NPR, and in Black Enterprise, 64 Parishes, and Atlas Obscura. As an international soloist, arts integration specialist, and university lecturer at Loyola, Joseph has received awards such as Who’s Who in America 2024, Leadership in The Arts from Washington, D.C.-based Opera Lafayette, and was an Honorary Culture Bearer in the Krewe of Muses parade. In 2022, she received The Torchbearers Award from The New Orleans Regional Chapter of The National Coalition of 100 Black Women. The former Education Director for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra was most recently featured in Songs of Slavery and Emancipation, Dillard University’s Ray Charles Center for Material Culture’s Legacy of American Slavery, and The Nous Foundation’s Voices of Renewal, celebrating the Creole language.