The Glyndebourne Youth Opera Company.
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The Yo! Festival (youth opera festival) aims to build bridges between opera and young audiences. The programme for 2007 demonstrated the diversity of youth opera in Europe, with groups from the UK, Austria and Belgium performing a diversity of music from traditional Arabic to yodelling.
GYO performed a new work, Wild Dreams, themed on the journey of fleeing refugees. It was a co-production between Yo! Opera Laboratory and Glyndebourne and was performed at the Delta College in Utrecht in November 2007 by GYO members aged 15 – 19 together with players from South Downs Youth Orchestra.
During the performance the audience was taken on an interactive trip around various settings in the college. Every location focused on a different musical motif, ranging from Verdi’s Macbeth to traditional Albanian folk songs. Our composer-in-residence, Julian Philips, also contributed to the opera. Julian's site specific work Ghosts, also a promenade piece, is set in locations at Glyndebourne.
The performance of Wild Dreams was hosted by students from the college who also provided the sets, and even participated as singers. This illustrates explicitly one of Yo!’s main purposes – to form a culture of experimentation among a rising generation of youth opera makers.
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How to join Glyndebourne Youth Opera
The Glyndebourne Education Department
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See more on the yo! opera festival website