Phone +44 0 20 7495 3133 [email protected] www.streetwiseopera.org Reg charity no: 1092931 Streetwise Opera's 2010 production: Fables – A Film Opera About Streetwise Opera Streetwise Opera uses music as a tool to help homeless people move forward in their lives. The charity runs two programmes of work – an annual professional opera project starring performers who have experienced homelessness working alongside top professional artists and a Workshop Programme which underpins the opera performance. This programme takes place in 11 homeless centres around England each week in London, Luton, Nottingham, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Manchester involving over 500 music and drama workshops each year, regular performances, theatre trips and a work placement scheme for participants. Winner of The Times/Gramophone Music in the Community Award and Andy Ludlow Homeless Award Streetwise Opera was called, ‘One of the most innovative charities of the decade’ by Gordon Brown. All of Streetwise Opera’s past productions have won four and five stars in the national press and the current show, the film and music installation My Secret Heart won a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award and British Composer Award for Mira Calix its creator. My Secret Heart is enjoying an international tour to an estimated audience of 150,000 at venues as diverse as the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Royal Festival Hall and Sydney Biennale. Fables - A Film Opera Step into a magical world of legend and folklore with Streetwise Opera’s new commission, Fables – a Film Opera, a production that is part-opera, part-film created by some of the country’s leading composers and filmmakers working with Streetwise Opera performers. Composers Orlando Gough, Mira Calix, Paul Sartin/Andy Mellon (members of the folk band Bellowhead) and Emily Hall have teamed up with film-makers Tom Marshall, Flat-e, Gaëlle Denis, Iain Finlay and director Emma Bernard to produce truly innovative works that span the genres of opera, folk, electronica and film. The teams have created four stunning seven-minute films based on fables from the classic, The Boy who Cried Wolf; the folkloric, the legend of the Hartlepool Monkey; the literary, Oscar Wilde’s poignant The Nightingale and the Rose and the contemporary Shinishi Hoshi’s captivating Hey! Come on Out! Each team will work in the four regions where Streetwise Opera works each week (a group of 11 homeless centres): North East: Byker Bridge, Crisis, Virginia House in Newcastle and ECHG Wellington St in Middlesbrough will be working with film-maker Tom Marshall and composers Andy Mellon and Paul Sartin Midlands: YMCA Nottingham and the Booth Centre in Manchester will be working with film-maker Iain Finlay and Orlando Gough. This is in collaboration with Opera North our artistic partner in the region London/Luton: Crisis Skylight and NOAH will be working with film-makers Flat-e and composer Mira Calix London (other): Passage, Connection at St Martins and ECHG Queen Mary Hostel will be working with film-maker Gaëlle Denis and composer Emily Hall. An estimated 120-150 Streetwise Opera performers will be involved in the project, working with the artists to create the Film Operas, developing ideas for the concept of the pieces, the soundtracks, the script and starring on screen and on the soundtrack. Presentation World Premiere – Spitalfields Music Winter Festival, 17 December at Shoreditch Church (5pm, 7pm, 9pm including a 30-minute pre-performance exploration). Box office 020 7377 1362 The world premiere will involve a screening of the four Film Operas interspersed with live opera starring a cast of over 100 Streetwise Opera performers and professional musicians including singers Mara Carlyle, Alice Grant and Charmian Bedford, cellist Olly Coates and instrumentalists from Bellowhead. Shoreditch Church will be transformed for the event by designers from the award-winning theatre company Punch Drunk, transporting audiences into a magical world the moment they set foot in the building. Following the live premiere, the Film Operas tour to film festivals, cinemas and other venues internationally. Fables Artist Biographies Director Emma Bernard devised and directed the live staging of My Secret Heart at the RFH in 2008 and created Critical Mass with composer Orlando Gough at Almeida Opera 2007 (both for Streetwise Opera). Other recent projects: Flam (Tête à Tête Opera Festival), Sun and Heir (ROH Education), Fingerprint with The Shout (ROH2),Tongue-Tied with Askew and Avis (ROH2 ‘Firsts’). She is currently developing a new play, Woman Falling Over with writer Sarah Woods, supported by The National Theatre Studio and spent six months this year as a full time director for Cardboard Citizens. Composers Andy Mellon/Paul Sartin. Andy Mellon trained at the Royal Academy of Music and Goldsmiths College. He has worked with artists as diverse as Damon Albarn and Christopher Biggins. He has written, arranged and scored music for numerous television and film productions for the BBC, Tiger Aspect and Sony BMG. His trumpet playing has taken him around the world, and to Rhyl. Paul Sartin specialises in the traditional vernacular music of England. As a singer, oboist and violinist he performs and records extensively with Bellowhead (South Bank Artists in Residence, BBC Radio 2 Best Live Act and Best Group 2008), Faustus (BBC Radio 2 Horizon Award nominees 2008) and duo Belshazzar’s Feast. In addition he edits publications of music manuscripts and delivers workshops, and is Consultant and Director of the Andover Museum Loft Singers. In 2007 received a 75th Anniversary Award from the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Emily Hall has a background in classical music. When she wrote a chamber opera in 2004 as winner of the Genesis Opera Prize, she became switched onto song writing. Emily likes to explore the tension between art song and intuitive song and she writes a lot of songs with author Toby Litt. Mira Calix has released five albums and is signed to Warp Records. Her earlier music is almost exclusively electronic in nature, however, since 2003 she has incorporated orchestration and classical instruments into her work for installation pieces, film soundtracks and theatre. Mira has been commissioned to write pieces for the London Sinfonietta, the Aldeburgh Festival, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Opera North, Streetwise Opera and The Manchester International Festival amongst others. Orlando Gough writes music mostly for the theatre - operas, plays, dance pieces, music-theatre, directs The Shout, and devises and directs large-scale site-specific choral pieces. He is currently working on a piece for the viol consort Fretwork and an opera with libretto by Caryl Churchill. He is an associate artist of the Royal Opera House. Film-makers/visual artists Robin Slater/Rob McNicholas (Flat-e) Flat-e is a visual art collective focused on the exploration of live audiovisual performance, installation and film. They have collaborated with artists as diverse as Aphex Twin the London Sinfonietta and Rambert Dance Company. Past projects include films for Warp Works and visuals for musicians Squarepusher, Plaid, LFO and Clark. In 2008 they created the critically acclaimed contemporary opera My Secret Heart: a collaboration with electronic composer Mira Calix presented on a 360º projection screen. Flat-e also directed the live visual effects for upcoming feature film Bunny and the Bull -directed by Paul King (Mighty Boosh). They are now working in collaboration with Sir Peter Blake on an animation project for the feature film Sex n Drugs n Rock n Roll. Iain Finlay studied Contemporary Arts at Nottingham Trent University, progressing from installation-based work to narrative video and film. After graduating, he was funded by the UK Film Council's Digital Shorts scheme and made Number 54, which screened at film festivals and was shortlisted for BBC Talent's New Filmmaker Award. He has worked on documentary projects for Anton Corbijn, Shane Meadows, Simon Ellis and photographer Dean Rogers. Earlier in 2009 Iain completed Wintering through the Digital Shorts scheme which represented the UK at the young artists Biennale, in Macedonia 2009. Tom Marshall After beginning to make films in college I went on to study TV and Film Production at Teesside University, where I continued to make self-funded films in my spare time. Including 'bigboy_74' which went on to win the BBC New Talent Award 2007, as well as other awards including Best Film and Best Director at Milwaukee Short film Festival. In 2008 I was named a ‘Star of Tomorrow’ by ‘Screen International’ in their annual feature. Gaëlle Denis was born in France and moved to London in 2000 to study for an MA in Film Direction at the Royal College of Art. As part of her studies Gaëlle participated in a four-month residency program at the Kyoto University of Arts in Japan, which culminated in her award-winning short film Fish Never Sleep. The piece won a BAFTA for Best Animated Short film in 2003, and garnered attention from numerous other international film festivals. In 2004, she joined Passion Pictures and directed the short film City Paradise that was made in conjunction with the Channel 4 Artist In Residence initiative, supported by the Museum of the Moving Image. The film has received more than 50 international awards to date, including the Jury Award in Annecy and the Innovation Award in Aspen. City Paradise was also nominated for a BAFTA. In 2006, Gaëlle directed a short live action film called After the Rain, commissioned by Channel 4 and its scheme Cinema Extreme. Gaëlle has directed, and is currently working on various projects with London-based production company Stink, including an adaptation of the book The Diary of Petr Ginz, a hybrid live action and animation feature project. Gaëlle is currently collaborating with film artist Tim Hope on a series of sequences to appear in the forthcoming show Shoes by Richard Thomas for the Sadler’s Wells.