Artist Residency

We are thrilled to announce that the Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside’s inaugural artist-in-residence will be Heather Jones. Heather (they/them) is a singing actor with deep roots in many traditions of sacred music, and who has gained a reputation for amplifying queer and trans stories in opera. 

After building a career as a professional mezzo soprano over the course of a decade, Heather has begun medically transitioning using testosterone: this process will change their voice in ways that can and can’t be anticipated. This residency provides emotional and spiritual support for Jones through this tender and exciting time. This residency also provides financial support that will allow them to focus on developing One Body, an immersive performance art piece about growing up as a trans singer in the Episcopal church, and how their voice—past, present, and future—can be housed in a singular body.  

As their voice changes in the coming months, Jones will record themselves singing a variety of sacred music: in the performance of One Body, those recorded voices will be mixed into the texture of live singing and vocal processing. As Jones’ transition progresses, they will begin to harmonize with these voices, recompose, improvise, and invite the audience to sing along as well. 

Jones said, “Through the process of transitioning, I have had to learn to ask for help, to release control, and to commit to being a constant work in progress. The holistic support that I'm receiving through this residency helps me reshape my urgency to produce as much as possible; instead I'm finding myself exploring the scarier but far more intriguing question: what kind of art could I make if I felt safe enough to sit in the unknown?”

The Rev. Dr. Carl Adair, who is gathering the new Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside, is thrilled that Jones will have time and resources to develop this work. “We’re a work in progress, too. The ‘mission’ of this new community in Sunnyside is all about things which have been cast down being raised up, and things which have grown old being made new. Heather’s vulnerable and courageous work enacts that, embodies that. I hope that One Body will push the Church to grapple anew with the ways it privileges certain voices and silences others; I hope it can also show the wider Church that the process of queer becoming can reveal new dimensions of the healing and liberating vision of the Gospel.” 

“I really believe that queer and trans people are showing us all what the Kingdom of God could look like,” Adair went on. “And for Heather to be weaving that into a reimagination of sacred music…it’s really such a privilege to be connected to this process.”

Heather has performed the role of Hannah in As One with Kentucky Opera, Opera Maine, and Holy City Opera, in the world premiere of The Smallest Sound in the Smallest Space at the Clark Theatre in Lincoln Center, and in a semi-autobiographical chamber opera titled Expostulation(s) of Mary commissioned by the Grammy nominated Wild Up Ensemble. In late November 2024, they will debut a theatrical recital with Dicky Dutton called Never Land relating to themes of queer escapism found in Bernstein’s Peter Pan, and in December they will join the Santa Fe Desert Chorale for their concert series titled A Rose in Winter.

We look forward to some work-in-progress performances in Spring or Summer 2025 in Sunnyside—and to seeing how this work develops and emerges! You can follow Heather on Instagram @hbeeejay.