Willmore Singers: About Us
The Willmore Singers is a small company producing high quality chamber music, opera and theatre with a commitment to community outreach and widening participation. Partly this is achieved by using non-traditional venues in the hearts of communities alongside affordable pricing, but we are also passionate about looking at new ways of interpreting, editing and approaching works to encourage people to be challenged and transformed, whether they're hearing the work for the first or the hundredth time.
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Projects
Dido and Aeneas |
Twelfth Night and Timon of Athens |
The Willmore Singer's production of Dido and Aeneas sets Purcell's opera in a psychiatric hospital where Dido is a young woman suffering from a psychosis that causes hallucinations and the belief that her boyfriend Aeneas is unfaithful. The production aims to provide a fresh experience of a well-loved piece as well as to encourage discussion around, and to explore through music, what it means to be mentally ill. The piece premiered in Birmingham and since then has been performed in Bristol and Bath alongside community workshops for local choirs. Future plans include the Edinburgh festival and workshops in prisons.
The MikadoWe have been working on an updated version of The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's most well-known work, set in a night club amongst organised criminals. In recent years, traditional productions of The Mikado have been heavily criticised for racisim and appropriation, we want to open dialogue around this and whether it's possible to preserve The Mikado in the 21st century at all and if so, how to relegate racist interpretations to history.
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This production presents excerpts from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Timon of Athens interspersed with Renaissance music and Purcell's mini opera Timon of Athens: The Manhater. It seeks to both introduce people to a play very rarely performed (Timon) and provide a new way of experiencing one of the bard's most famous works (Twelfth Night). The action in both is presented in the modern day with an encourgement to look at themes surrounding love (Twelfth Night) and greed and insecurity (Timon). The production had its first tour in November 2017, followed by Theatre in Education workshops, we hope to present the work at Shakespeare festivals in the future.
A Midsummer's Night's Dream and A Winter's TaleConcerts and workshopsSmall groups of artists from The Willmore Singers regularly perform at concerts or workshops with a wide range of community groups. In the past these have included coffee mornings, charity concerts and sheltered housing. We are available for commercial hire for weddings, functions and parties and are always pleased to receive requests from community organisers looking for the provision of music in their services or events.
We are particularly keen to offer more Theatre in Education workshops for schools, chiefly focusing on Shakespeare. Please get in touch if you'd like to discuss this further, we are able to bring work specially prepared for your context or pieces already in our repertoire. |
"Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!"- J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)