![](https://debatingmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Jonny-Best-1024x1024.jpg)
musician, writer, and arts producer
Jonny Best has worked in arts and culture for almost thirty years, in arts festivals, classical music, theatre, opera and silent film. He has produced debates, theatre productions, concerts, exhibitions and participatory arts projects. Now, he focuses on working with silent film as a musician and producer and is a resident pianist at BFI Southbank, and the director of Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. He is the former artistic director of the UK’s first LGBT arts festival, Queer Up North, with whom he commissioned the UK’s first nationwide anti-LGBT bullying project for secondary schools. Jonny writes on contemporary issues, including freedom of speech and LGBT politics.