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Yorkshire Youngsters Re-imagine The Magic Flute

An exciting community operatic project featuring young people aged from 4-18 is set to come alive in the market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire this July when over 120 people come together to perform in a one-off staging of Mozart’s much loved opera The Magic Flute.

The project, which is part of the North Yorkshire Youth Music Action Zone (NYMAZ) programme, funded by Youth Music, brings together several groups from the Skipton area and the local professional orchestra, Skipton Building Society Camerata, to give a joint performance on 9 July at Skipton Girl’s School, the culmination of eight weeks of workshops all based around the opera.

The workshops will offer provision to sections of the community where it is currently limited. All workshops will be led by an artist who is trained and experienced at working with the ages involved and will look at the core music skills of listening, composing and performing. A big emphasis will be musical examples performed live by professional players and the pupils working alongside the professionals will be a constant feature of the sessions.

By the performance date each workshop group will have a short excerpt based on Mozart’s The Magic Flute, but altered and abridged by the young participants, which when performed in order with the other groups’ work and interspersed with performances by the professional musicians involved will tell the story of The Magic Flute.  

Professional musicians and singers will work with pupils from local primary schools to familiarise them with short sections of Mozart's opera. The pupils will then create short dance and drama pieces in response to the music that they'll perform as part of the final concert.

Older pupils from Skipton Girls School will orchestrate the pieces created by the younger pupils and will also take themes from Mozart's original work to create a new overture for the final performance.    

The performance will also feature students from Brooklands special school who will take part in workshops involving movement, singing and costume making. The workshops will culminate in a final performance, featuring all project participants, Skipton Building Society Camerata and five professional opera singers.

Youth Music was set up in 1999 with a remit to support music-making activities for some of the UK’s most disadvantaged young people, encouraging their talents, building their confidence and transforming the landscape of musical opportunity throughout the UK. Every year more than 150,000 children take part in Youth Music programmes of the broadest variety imaginable; from hip-hop and dj-ing to classical and jazz. Youth Music’s work is targeted at young people who ordinarily would never have the chance to create music, encouraging involvement from a very early age.

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