Last October, five student composers from the Royal Welsh College attended a speed-dating event with a difference. They were at St Fagans, the Natural History Museum of Wales, and the aim was to create composer-writer partnerships to take part in Music Theatre Wales’ Make an Aria Project.
“The primary aim to provoke and explore the nature of the collaboration between writer and composer when creating opera”
Michael McCarthy, Artistic Director, Music Theatre Wales
The culmination of this project is usually the public masterclass led by one of the UK’s leading opera composers, where all five composers work will be performed. This year Jonathan Dove will be holding the masterclass at the College on 26th February.
Amy Willock is a fourth year undergraduate composer and it’s the first time she’s composed for opera. She and her writing partner, Tom Stuart were inspired by their time at St Fagans, particularly by the history of the main house which was used as a hospital in the First World War. They have both been drawn to the same character – a lady who kept diaries throughout this period and who lost all of her grandsons in that war and her diaries come to an abrupt end.
The performances at St Fagans will take place on 7th July. The singers will be in costume and placed in locations of interest around the ‘Castle’ – the stately home/mansion & grounds, which sit at the heart of the St Fagans National Museum Of Welsh Life.
This is the fourth time Make an Aria has been run at the College. One of the project’s success stories is graduate composer Spyros Syrmos, who took part in the project in 2013. He and librettist Fay Wrixon’s aris was featured in the public masterclass with Sir Harrison Birtwistle (pictured), and later that year was chosen as a winner of the Flourish competition, which allowed them to develop it into a full-length production, The Blank Canvas, in association with Opera Up Close. It premiered at the King’s Head Theatre in London in September 2014 to critical acclaim.
In the run up to this year’s Make an Aria project, MTW arranged for student composers to meet Philip Glass, the composer of their latest commission, The Trial. They were also joined by the two artistic directors of MTW, Michael McCarthy and Michael Rafferty.
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