Opera for the Very Young – Stories through Sound 

OperaUpClose is a national touring opera company with storytelling, partnership, and innovation at its heart. Intimate in scale, mighty in impact. OperaUpClose will run a series of collaborative and co-creative workshops on the Isle of Wight taking children and teachers on a journey from reception through to Year 2 as we develop a new opera based on the beautiful picture book Flotsam by David Wiesner.

Led by a creative team including composer/writer and designer the workshops will engage children and their teachers, using Flotsam - recognised by the BookTrust (2024) as “breath-taking, intricately detailed” - as inspiration for a co-creative process that will combine music-making with visual art and notation through mark-making. The aim is to build teachers’ skills and confidence in delivering creative music activities, while also generating material for a new opera for early years that will tour schools and theatres in Autumn 2026.

This project, run in partnership with the Southampton & Isle of Wight Music, is central to a broadening of an early years music strategy that integrates opera into music curriculums and explores the long-term benefits for pupil's creativity and appreciation for the arts.

We are looking for 2/3 schools that can take part in a series of workshops working with the same group(s) of children across the activity and spaces will be allocated on a first come first served basis:

DATES

Reception: w/c 16 June 2025 – 45 min workshop led by the OperaUpClose creative

team

Year 1: w/c 22 September 2025 – 45 – 60 min workshop

Year 1: w/c 26 January 2026 – 60 – 75 min workshop led by the OperaUpClose

creative team with an accompanying CPD workshop for teachers led by

Southampton and Isle of Wight Music

Year 2: Autumn 2026 – opportunity to attend performance of new opera Flotsam

either in school or theatre