• Kids’ Choir

In 2010 the Mayor's Thames Festival, with the support of Sing Up, has commissioned the internationally renowned British composer Jonathan Dove and librettist, Alasdair Middleton, to compose a new cantata, inspired by the River Thames, for 1000 children's voices.

'River Songs' will be performed for the first time by 1000 London school children as the spectacular event of the Mayor's Thames Festival 2010. The performance will take place on Saturday 11th September outside City Hall in The Scoop at More London.

Led by Richard Frostick, the project will develop a high quality choral performance with children from 10 London boroughs - Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Wandsworth. Via 'River Songs', these children will get an unrivalled opportunity to broaden their musical horizons by working with a world class composer and being exposed, often for the first time, to the richness and complexity of a specially created choral piece. They will experience the joys of singing and performing in a group and will develop broader key skills such as self-confidence and team-work.

Jonathan Dove (Composer)
Jonathan Dove is renowned internationally for his success on the operatic stage and for his choral works. He is particularly known for taking opera to new places and reaching new audiences. His operas number over 20, and include the airport comedy Flight, two operas for television, several chamber operas, and a frequently-performed church opera, Tobias and the Angel. Jonathan has also created a series of community operas and two operas for all the family: The Enchanted Pig and The Adventures of Pinocchio. In 1998 he was joint winner of the Christopher Whelen Award for his work in the fields of theatre, music and opera. His community cantata On Spital Fields received a Royal Philharmonic Society Award and a British Composer Award, and in 2008 Jonathan was awarded a second British Composer Award for The Adventures of Pinocchio. Jonathan Dove was the recipient of the Ivor Novello Award for classical music in 2008.

Alasdair Middleton (Librettist)
Alasdair's works include: plays Casta Diva, Aeschylean Nasty, Shame on you, Charlotte and When We Were Good (at B.A.C.); librettos for children's operas The Hackney Chronicles (composer Jonathan Dove) and The World Was All Before Them (Matthew King); a community opera On London Fields (Matthew King) for Hackney Music Development Trust and Red Riding Hood (Jonathan Dove) for The Knack/Baylis Programme. He has compiled texts for performance pieces - Polite Conversation, Lachrymae and All In The Dark, and a community cantata for the Spitalfields Festival, On Spital Fields (Jonathan Dove).

Richard Frostick (Music Director)
Richard Frostick has an international reputation as an animateur and has worked on large-scale projects in Portugal, Croatia, and Belgium with major orchestras. In the UK he has worked regularly with the BBC Symphony, Philharmonic and Concert orchestras and with musicians from the LSO, Philharmonia, Halle, OAE and London Sinfonietta. He co-devised and presented the first BBC Symphony Orchestra's Proms 'Out and About' concert at the Brixton Academy, working with composer John Adams, and has worked twice with jazz legend Hugh Masekela on projects with youth choirs. He has prepared young choirs for five BBC Proms and recently trained a massed family choir for a Proms Folk Day performance. In June 2009 he conducted City Sings at the Barbican and in September he will conduct a choir of 750 ten-year olds on the South Bank for the Mayor's Thames Festival - the culmination of a six-month project.

As founder and director of the Islington Music Centre, an independent charitable provision for 400 young people aged 6-18, he has prepared choirs for numerous performances on radio and TV. The Centre was featured in the Channel 4 documentary 'Don't Stop The Music' as an example of national excellence. In 2010 a second centre will open and the whole enterprise will become The London Music Centre.

 

 

 

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