Meet the partner – English Touring Opera
At West Sussex Music we work best as a community, and one of the ways we do this is by creating partnerships with like-minded organisations, we call these our Hub Partners. Our latest Hub Partner is set to bring a something ‘operatic’ to our offering.
We’re pleased to announce that English Touring Opera (ETO) is our newest Hub Partner.
Since 1979, ETO has toured outstanding live productions and impactful education and community projects to more towns and cities than any other UK opera company. At the heart of their ethos is making exceptional artistic experiences available and accessible to everyone.
The ETO has an upcoming Key Stage 2 schools tour of The Vanishing Forest and is working with West Sussex Music to organise a performance in a primary school in the Crawley area.
The Vanishing Forest is a newly commissioned participatory opera that acts as a sequel to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Vanishing Forest is the third in the ETO’s trilogy of climate-change based operas. It is linked to the national curriculum and intended to educate and inspire children on the issue of deforestation.
James Underwood, Chief Executive for West Sussex Music, said:
“We are very fortunate to have been approached by English Touring Opera. ETO creates specially commissioned operas and stages performance in public venues and schools in a way that is truly accessible to children and young people. We’re thrilled they’re bringing The Vanishing Forest to Crawley and look forward to working with them and schools.”
The Vanishing Forest follows the events of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, educating and inspiring children with song, puppetry and adventure. Athens’ forest is being chopped down, and with each tree felled, more magic disappears from the land. It’s down to Cassie and Mylas to find Puck, Oberon and Titania, stop the destruction and restore wonder to their beautiful forest.
Written by Jonathan Ainscough and composed by Michael Betteridge, the curriculum rich The Vanishing Forest will be performed for over 5,000 Key Stage Two children across the country.
The ETO reaches 40,000 people per year with full theatre-based productions, specially commissioned operas for infants, children, families and young people with special educational needs, a series of creative workshops for people living with dementia and their carers, opera-making workshops in schools, and song writing workshops designed to benefit young people’s mental health.
For more information visit their website.
