The Old Bradfordian community is truly international, with more than 6,000 OBs based across 40 countries. We love hearing about OB’s international experiences and used lockdown as an excuse to reach out to find out what some have been up to. To see the ‘Where in the World’ feature in its entirety, read pages 36-41 in The Old Bradfordian 2020 magazine.

Anglo-American Lila Palmer has been bouncing back and forth between North America and the UK her whole life; in fact, the pandemic has been the first time she’s not been back in England at least every six months.

‘It’s the Betty’s withdrawal and family still settled in the Dales that bring me back’, she recalls. But since upping sticks from London for New York in 2017 to take up a coveted fellowship in the triennial Composer Librettist Development Program run by American Lyric Theater, the former opera singer has gone from strength to strength.

Lila is a librettist and producer who specialises in concealed or historically overlooked narratives, with an active secondary practice in creating activation events for museum interpretation, including the London Transport Museum, Museum of London and many others. Despite being grounded by pandemic restrictions, 2020/21 has been something of a banner year for Lila, after a globetrotting 2019 saw her hosting Medici TV’s coverage of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in St Petersburg and partnering with the British Army on a new work exploring the intersectional experiences of female soldiers, ‘Dead Equal’.

Harking back to her early career as a children’s book editor, Lila’s adaption of Wilde’s fairytale, ‘The Selfish Giant’, with international jazz star Clarice Assad will premier this season at Opera Saratoga. ‘Splintered’, a Nutcracker fantasia with Justine Chen and Jorge Sosa is also in development at American Lyric Theater. ‘Opera Murder Club’, an installation opera with Tamar-Kali Brown is in production for ‘LA Opera’ and ‘American Apollo’ her opera with Damien Getter about John Singer Sargent and his African-American muse, Thomas McKeller, will also debut at The Kennedy Center in April 2021, along with ‘This be Her Verse’, a song cycle commissioned by South African soprano Gold Schultz (2020 Last Night of the Proms).

British audiences will be able to catch the rescheduled premier of her children’s cantata, ‘In Her Own Valley’, with Grace Evangeline Mason for the Liverpool Philharmonic later this year.

Lila was recently named Interim Managing Director of American Lyric Theater, the company who brought her to New York. She is currently facilitating a major diversity and equity initiative, alongside a strategic rebranding.

Taking the opportunity afforded by living without her suitcases by the door, in November 2020 Lila married Indian-Canadian conductor and early music specialist Joshua Anand Slater in a five person Anglican ceremony in Boston, Massachusetts. Composers John Corigliano and Mark Adamo witnessed. The couple hope to have a blessing at Southwark Cathedral, where Lila remains a member, in August 2021. They currently reside in Manhattan with their rescue English Mastiff.