The Grange Festival Learning was delighted to be part of this ambitious cross cultural, creative arts project to devise a contemporary youth opera. The piece has been conceived and devised by young people from UK, Italy, Syria, Palestine and Lebanon who have connected digitally to discuss their stories, beliefs and hopes through music and text. Composer Richard Taylor and librettist lisa luxx have woven their words and musical ideas into a mythical youth opera.
In addition, an ‘opera pack’ of learning vocal tapes, staging and design ideas will be created to inspire youth organisations to perform the youth opera in whatever circumstances are available to them.
Our full staged performance was on 7 July 2023 in our Theatre, involving approximately 125 Hampshire young people.
Creative team
Karen Gillingham
Director
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Richard Taylor composed the musicals Flowers For Mrs Harris (Sheffield Crucible, Chichester Festival Theatre) and The Go-Between (UK tour & West End, starring Michael Crawford), both Best Musical winners at the UK Theatre Awards; the operas Confucius Says (Hackney Empire, RPS Award winner) and Ludd & Isis (Royal Opera), and the dramatic cantata Calderland (Halifax Piece Hall, RPS Award winner). Most recently Richard has composed the opera The Moon Is Listening, commissioned by Garsington Opera, The Grange Festival and four international companies. Other work includes commissions for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta Soloists, English National Opera, as well as music for almost 100 plays in theatres across the UK and West End.
lisa minerva luxx* is a British Syrian writer and activist. Poetry Review celebrated her work as “vigorously intellectual and politically febrile.” Her poems are regularly broadcast on Channel 4, BBC Radio 4 and published by Penguin, New England Review and others worldwide. In 2023 she has two new shows on tour: what the dog said to the harvest, an opera installation about the racism inherent in climate disaster; and Dawn to Dusk: The Moon is listening.
Recent Engagements: Eating the Copper Apple
Future Engagements: what the dog said to the harvest
*please note my name is de-capitalised intentionally, all publishing matter must follow suit
Ruth is a set and costume designer for theatre, opera and dance. She trained at the Motley Theatre Design Course and currently holds a Lectureship in Design for Theatre at the University for the Creative Arts. Ruth has been an associate artist at Blind Summit since 2014.
Recent opera designs include productions for Longborough, Bregenz and Spoleto Festivals, the Abu Dhabi National Theatre, Hollywood Bowl LA, Princeton University and the Barbican.
Engagement, outreach and teaching forms part of Ruth’s practice and she is a lead artist for the Learning and Participation departments at Garsington Opera, English National Opera and the Royal Opera House where she also works on the annual Design Challenge. Ruth has designed many large scale community operas for ROH, Opera North, ENO and Garsington.
Jonathan Gill studied composition with William Mathias at UCNW, followed by two years in the Opera School of the Royal College of Music under James Lockhart.
Most recently he was MD for Beauty and the Beast (London Palladium and tour), the UK tour of The Lion King (also Associate MD at the Lyceum Theatre). The Go-Between (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Derby and Northampton) for which he was also MD, won the UK theatre award for best musical production 2012. Jonathan conducted 600 performances of The Sound ofMusic on its UK tour, starring Connie Fisher. Other credits include Of Thee I Sing and Let ‘Em Eat Cake (Opera North); The Wizard of Oz (Royal Festival Hall); Richard Taylor’s new opera, Confucius Says (Hackney Empire, RPS Award 2009); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (West Yorkshire Playhouse and Birmingham Rep); Follies (Royal and Derngate, Northampton); Carl Davis’s Alice in Wonderland (WYP/Birmingham Rep); Falstaff (MTL and film); The Jonah Boy (Stephen Joseph, Scarborough); Peribanez and Sleeping Beauty (Young Vic); and Putting It Together and Company (Library Theatre, Manchester). Jonathan arranged and conducted School4Lovers, a hip hop version of Così fan tutte (Glyndebourne, Finnish National Opera and Estonian National Opera); and was Musical Arranger for adaptations of Le nozze di Figaro, Carmen and Die Fledermaus (New Vic, Stoke).
Jonathan also conducted the premieres of Matthew King’s On London Fields (RPS Award 2005), and Odyssean Variations with cellist Natalie Clein (LSO St Luke’s).
Lynsey enjoys a wide and varied music career as an operatic soprano, producer and vocal director. She has sung lead soprano roles with companies including Dorset Opera Festival, Buxton International Opera Festival, Iford Opera Festival, UK tours with Opera Della Luna, International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival, and the Wagner Society of Great Britain and the Mastersingers at the ROH. In concert she has performed at concert halls, festivals and cathedrals nationwide. Lynsey is passionate about arts in education, and for 20 years has created opera projects with organisations, in such diverse settings as schools, prisons, orphanages (Tajikistan), and with people with dementia and special needs. She is the Founder Director of Celebrate Voice Festival - an award-winning, multi-genre festival of voice in Wiltshire.