![String students laughing back stage](/sites/default/files/styles/1_1_media_tiny/public/2024-07/180708_gsmd_231.jpg?h=10d202d3&itok=FDOm7O2q 400w, /sites/default/files/styles/1_1_media_small/public/2024-07/180708_gsmd_231.jpg?h=10d202d3&itok=y1pClAIi 750w, /sites/default/files/styles/1_1_media_medium/public/2024-07/180708_gsmd_231.jpg?h=10d202d3&itok=81DWEM4y 1000w)
![Repeated rows of purple, green, pink and blue wave patterns](/sites/default/files/styles/12_6_media_small/public/2023-11/Song%20in%20Sign%20feature%20image.jpg?h=5652f30d&itok=btRfo-lw)
Tickets
About this event:
- Category:
- Classical Music
- Event type:
- Booking required | In-person
- Admission:
- £15 (£8 concessions)
- Location:
- Milton Court Concert Hall
Event information
Two opera singers, a pianist and two signing actors join forces to create a joyous merging of Song and Sign. Be transported to a New Zealand forest in Dame Gillian Whitehead’s Awa Herea (meaning Braided Rivers), bask in the gorgeous music of Richard Strauss and Duparc before smiling through tears in the world premiere of a new take on Oscar Wilde’s famous story The Happy Prince by Rylan Gleave (composer) and Max Chase (librettist).
This staged concert is a fully integrated signed song performance. It is audio described and captioned throughout.
Song in Sign is supported using public funding from Arts Council England
Programme & performers
Gillian Whitehead Vocalise; Karakia; Awa Herea; The Berries; Lake Ianthe; Scale and Perspective; The Sandfly; Awa Herea
Judith Exley A Fly
Judith Exley Peacocks
Herbert Howells King David
Henri Duparc Romance de Mignon (Mignon’s song)
Robert Schumann Tanziled (Dance Song)
Richard Strauss Heimliche Aufforderung (Secret Invitation)
Richard Strauss Morgen! (Tomorrow!)
Robert Schumann Unter’m Fenster (Beneath the Window)
Henri Duparc Au Pays Où Se Fait La Guerre (To The Country Where They Are At War)
Herbert Howells A Widow Bird
Ivor Gurney Snow
Herbert Howells The Song of a Secret
Madeleine Dring Song of a Nightclub Proprietress
Richard Strauss In Abendrot (In Twilight)
Rylan Gleave The Happy Prince
Rhiannon May actor
Petre Dobre actor
Joanna Roughton-Arnold soprano
Ben Thapa tenor
Nigel Foster pianist
Caroline Parker MBE director
Daryl Jackson BSL creative consultant
Cha'nel Kara Luke NZSL & Māori cultural consultant
Joanna Roughton-Arnold creative director
Ellen Booth community participation producer & stage manager
Ruth Bertram producer
Zach Waddington access coordinator
About formidAbility
formidAbility produces opera that places accessibility at the foundation of the creative process, rather than adding it as an afterthought. We collaborate with the world’s foremost artists working for or with disability, because we believe that audiences miss out on a world of great art when artists, creators and performers with disabilities are missing from professional performance spaces.
Venue information
Milton Court, based across the road from our Silk Street building, provides the School with world-class performance and training spaces, including a state of the art concert hall, a lyric theatre, a studio theatre and several major rehearsal rooms.
- Milton Court, 1 Milton Street, London, EC2Y 9BH