Winter Festival Webcast

The Winter Festival starts today! We cornered Programme Directors Kate Wyatt (Festivals) and Clare Lovett (Learning & Participation) and asked them about what goes into programming  the Winter Festival and Learning & Participation events. Listen for a sneak preview of Winter Festival artists, Club Moxie (Aspirations programme students) and Fables – a Film Opera.

What Makes a Great Fable?

What do you think makes a great fable? We asked a whole host of people involved in Fables – A Film Opera (composers, directors, workshop leaders and members of our team) exactly that! This is what they said…

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Update: Opera in Pieces

Learning & Participation Programme Director, Clare Lovett, gives us a slice of the action from the Spitalfields Music extravaganza Opera in Pieces.

Back from my much needed summer holiday and incredible trip to Japan and right back to work with a bang… the first set of auditions for our new commission Opera in Pieces, our community choir Spitalfields Singers have started up again (every Thursday lunchtime) with their Winter Songs project. The search for an Opera in Pieces venue continues, with lots of explorations of car parks, film studios and other amazing spaces in and around Spitalfields.  We now have the second fabulous draft of the libretto and Hazel Gould and John Barber have been having their respective project development meetings with the inspirational dramaturg, Ruth Little and composer, Jonathan Dove.

“If you know someone who would make a fine ‘rat’ or ‘man’, then we want to hear them.”

Coming up soon are open auditions for our two solo parts, The Rat (bass/baritone) and Toby (tenor) on 8 November.  For these crucial parts, we’re looking for professional singers at the start of their careers with not only excellent voices, but acting skills to match.  If you know someone who would make a fine “rat” or “man”, then we want to hear them.  For further information see our website.

In the chilly air of autumn turning to winter, we’re about to invite our schools involved in the project to do an outdoor photo shoot – no doubt there will be more information on this shortly, and shots of frozen children!  In the meantime, we’re running singing workshops with the magnificent Isabelle Adams in our schools to get them in full voice for their debut as rats in the summer.

For those interested in taking a less high profile part in Opera in Pieces, we need your voices too! We are looking for people to join in the chorus of office and everyday folk. Please contact Cathy Birch, our Programme Manager to sign up.

In the meantime, don’t forget to catch Opera in Pieces composer John Barber’s latest commission:

Consider the Lilies
7:30pm – Saturday 6 November 2010
Concert in support of the Helen Bamber Foundation
More information here

Find the audition information for Opera in Pieces here

[ Photographs by Jez C Self ]

Intern Diaries: My first two weeks… Part II

And so I arrived at Spitalfields Music on a bright sunny day towards the end of September to begin my six month Learning & Participation internship. The first week whizzed by – meeting staff, gradually learning how the organisation works and more particularly, scratching the surface of the many projects on the go within L&P.

A whistle-stop tour of the area took in the many venues Spitalfields Music uses for its festivals and L&P projects. A part of London I’m not very familiar with as yet, but Tamsin’s sneaky top tip of using the “big, fat, tall building on Bishopsgate” as a guide to avoid getting lost has proved helpful as I’ve navigated my way around. My timetable for the first couple of weeks was punctuated with meetings within the office to explain in greater detail where projects are and who is involved in them, and then putting the faces to the names as I met some of the people involved externally.

“Tamsin’s sneaky top tip of using the ‘big, fat, tall building on Bishopsgate’ as a guide to avoid getting lost has proved helpful”

One especially fun day was spent meeting the six new MAASers, the trainee animateur apprentices appointed for a year to develop their skills in workshop leading. An inspiring morning with Phil Mullan as he probed the MAASers to think about what qualities are needed to be a successful leader was followed by a lively session with James Redwood. James threw out some wonderful games and techniques to act as energisers and coolers for the MAASers to motivate and engage their project participants. What else would follow “roller”, “gingerbread house” and “night” than “coaster”, “come in my pretty” and “ingale” (it is the centenary of Florence’s death afterall!)?

At lunchtime, Tamsin and I ran back to the office to meet three artists having a creative brainstorming session equipped with their massive sheets of paper, brightly coloured felt-tips and of course the quintessential tub of homemade chocolate brownies! My second week ended with a lively conversation with the accommodating receptionist at one of our Neighbourhood Schools and an insight into Clare’s role as Programme Director of L&P at Spitalfields Music. A great beginning!

Caroline Went
Learning & Participation Intern

What does Spitalfields Music mean to you?

During this year’s Summer Festival we asked members of our audience, the local community and others with close links to us, what Spitalfields Music meant to them. Here’s a little of what came back:

[video by Andy Weir]

See more videos about and by Spitalfields Music on our YouTube channel!