Calling all community singers ready to explore your voice, movement and creative expressions of your experience of the pandemic.
Experiment in a warm and open environment with making and breaking new rules of composition, creating together vivid vocal material, layering space with sound, loss with hope. Over 50 years ago, avant-garde English composer Cornelius Cardew created an experimental and politically engaged choir composition called The Great Learning designed to be performed by people with no or little formal musical training. Cardew’s work uses texts by ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius as provocations for mindful living. Based on Cardew’s work, The Great Learning project will use community singing - weaving words and music with simple movement - to explore our experience of living through the pandemic - how it made us feel, what questions it raised about how society functions, and what lessons it offers us for a better future. The project is not about reading sheet music, learning ready-written songs, or standing straight and singing out through a big smile – participants and artists will be exploring, improvising and playing together to create a new piece that responds to their own experiences and learnings. The final piece will also be responsive to the participants with each performance - taking on new dimensions and meanings from the performers’ interpretations.
The Creative Community Devising Day will be led by Music Director Tim Burke and Writer and Director Laura Lindow, working alongside our Artistic Director Frederic Wake-Walker, to support participants to collaboratively create our own Great Learning.
We will work to create a section of the piece, which will then be put together into a whole composition alongside sections from participants in Cumbria and Edinburgh to be shared with the public in July 2023.
The day is free and open to anyone over the age of 18. Tea, coffee & light refreshments are provided, but participants are asked to bring their own packed lunch. We aim to make our work accessible to anyone. Travel expenses are available for anyone on low income that might not otherwise be able to attend.
Book to attend at:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-great-learning-creative-community-devising-day-tickets-622450033807
or to find out more about the support available, or to discuss any other access requirements ahead of signing up, please contact Anne on producer@mahoganyopera.co.uk.