GARSINGTON OPERA
Reaching out
Covid-19 has not stopped Garsington Opera’s learning and participation team making a difference to people’s lives. Claire Jackson finds out more ‘
M
angoes, mangoes, I walked through a forest full of mangoes,’ sings Hannah Conway, inviting participants to join her. Sitting at the piano, she smiles encouragingly, repeating the simple melody, which was composed during a previous workshop. Next to her, Karen Gillingham provides some actions to accompany the lyrics ‘mangoes in the morning, mangoes on the street, mangoes in the evening, mangoes just to eat’. We press the palms of our hands together and place them under our chins to signify waking; move our arms enthusiastically to indicate walking. Garsington Opera’s learning and participation team shares this type of engaging music making with hundreds of children throughout the year as part of its ongoing commitment to education, running alongside the annual summer opera festival held at Wormsley in Buckinghamshire.
Often, the nurses join in and you can hear singing from further down the ward! ‘I’m always eating mangoes for my dinner and my tea,’ continues Conway. It’s a typical workshop – except that the pianist is at home, playing her upright Pleyel. And Gillingham, Garsington Opera’s learning and participation creative director just accidentally trod on her cat. Cats don’t usually come to Garsington’s music sessions – but then, the classes aren’t normally broadcast from the tutors’ separate living rooms, shared virtually via Zoom. ‘We had an extensive programme planned for this year,’ says Gillingham afterwards; we ‘meet’ on screen thanks to the wonders of WhatsApp. ‘We would usually be going into schools, working with local children and adults through community groups and our youth and adult companies.’ When coronavirus came, putting a stop to any real-life face time, Gillingham and her colleagues acted quickly. ‘We had all these musicians and participants signed up, ready to work and learn – we didn’t want to waste that opportunity,’ she says, ‘and because Garsington is a relatively small organisation we can move efficiently. I thought that we needed a few weeks to set up the online sessions, but Johnny Langridge [Garsington’s director of membership and communications] knew that it was important not to wait – it’s vital to keep going.’ The sessions – streamed at 10am on a Monday and dubbed ‘Monday Motivations’ have proved a hit. The first one attracted 52,000 viewers, with subsequent broadcasts increasing in popularity, particularly after Classic FM recommended the venture as part of its lockdown activities for families. ‘I always felt that our digital offering
could never replace the face-to-face contact,’ reflects Gillingham, ‘I still believe that, but it’s brilliant to be able to reach people in this way.’ Gillingham is used to working with large groups: ‘My work always has a participatory element to it,’ she explains, ‘I work with community choirs and schools. Dare to Dream [children’s opera performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 2019] included nearly 2,000 participants.’ Gillingham has worked with Wormsley for over 10 years; prior to that, she was co-artistic director of the Royal Opera House’s Youth Opera Company. Her directing credits include proms, plays and plenty of opera premieres. Garsington Opera was founded in 1989 by the late Leonard Ingrams and his wife Rosalind at Garsington Manor, near Oxford. The company moved to the Wormsley Estate, home of the Getty family, in 2011, where an annual opera series now takes place. Visitors return year after year, attracted to the high-quality performances and the beautiful setting for the traditional extended-interval picnic. (Where else do you get a notice warning, ‘Do not leave your food out during the first half – red kites like antipasti’?)
Ward Songs: making music with patients in hospital
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GARSINGTON OPERA
Karen Gillingham, Natalya Romaniw, Hannah Conway and Natasha Khamjani warming up for Monday Motivation (live on Garsington’s YouTube channel and Facebook page every Monday morning at 10am)
Not all attendees at Garsington Opera’s summer festival – sadly, but inevitably, cancelled this year – will be aware of the company’s busy education programme. It thrives, quietly and determinedly, under the radar, bringing music to those who need it most. Each year, Gillingham and her team work with hundreds of primary school children, bringing an opera singer, director and a composer into local schools. Individual institutions are taught a piece of music, and then everyone comes together for a participatory performance. Secondary school students have the chance to join Garsington’s youth opera company (‘we look for potential rather than polished talent’, says Gillingham) and all places are fully funded. This year, the company was due to perform The Selfish Giant, composed by John Barber with a libretto by Jessica Duchen, a co-commission with Opera North. ‘We had our launch session with this year’s youth company just before the schools closed,’ says Gillingham, ‘If we hadn’t had that day together things might have been different, but because we already feel like a company and everyone is very excited about the project, we’re going to run the sessions online.’ The performance – scheduled for 31 July – is still due to take place, but this is, of course, a moving target. There is no doubt that Gillingham will cook up something wonderful if participants are not able to be together in person. The adult company, working with local people from all backgrounds, continues to run remotely, too. ‘We have 200 members,’ says Gillingham, ‘It’s a real mix of professions from people all over the county. It’s not a choir, we are a dramatic singing group. We have parents of some of the kids in the children’s company, as well as headteachers.’ In addition to the schools projects and adult and youth community opera companies, Garsington runs a health and wellbeing project in partnership with Rosetta Life (RL). Ward Songs sees members of the adult company bring performance workshops to High Wycombe
Hospital Stroke unit as part of wider rehabilitation services. This follows on from Hospital Passion Play, an opera composed by Orlando Gough as part of an initiative between Garsington, RL and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). The work was performed by members of the Stroke Survivors Choir, Shout at Cancer Choir and Garsington’s adult company, as part of the V&A’s 2017 exhibition opera: Passion, Power and Politics. While research into the clinical impact of music on stroke recovery is still in its early stages, Garsington’s work is endorsed by senior consultants within the hospital and is ‘prescribed’ to particular patients. Gillingham describes the experience as ‘extraordinary’: ‘We’ve seen patients who haven’t been able to move respond to the music and eventually participate,’ she says, ‘Often, the nurses join in and you can hear singing from further down the ward!’ This year, Gough is taking inspiration from Beethoven’s Fidelio – the 2020 season was due to feature a revival of John Cox’s 2009 production, to mark Beethoven’s 250th anniversary – with a focus on the prisoners’ chorus. ‘The lyrics talk about moving from darkness into light – this is often how people describe stroke recovery,’ explains Gillingham. ‘It’s very poignant.’ Like many opera companies, Garsington has yet to announce whether it will reissue elements of its 2020 season in 2021. Either way, its learning and participation branch continues undeterred – join Gillingham and her guests every Monday at 10am; it’s the motivation we need now more than ever. CM Garsington Opera at Home: The Bartered Bride (2019) and Le nozze di Figaro (2017) are available to watch in full via Garsington’s YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/ GarsingtonOpera), where you will also find the #MondayMotivation sessions. MAY/JUNE 2020 CLASSICALMUSICMAGAZINE.ORG 55
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