Glyndebourne Education

Glyndebourne Education – a year-round programme of creativity, learning and participation.

Founded in 1934, Glyndebourne brings world class opera to rural East Sussex through their summer Festival. In the autumn the company takes Glyndebourne on Tour to towns across England.

The education department at Glyndebourne was established in 1986 and delivers work under three headings:

Youth and Community: including on-going projects Youth Opera, Performances for Schools, Work Related Learning and Opera Experience workshops.

Talks and Events: organizing Study Events and Pre-Performance Talks for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Glyndebourne on Tour.

New Work: commissioning opera on all scales for young people and the community; supporting a Composer in Residence scheme.

Since 1990 Glyndebourne has commissioned large-scale operas for the community and young people to participate in. The first community opera involved over 300 people on Hastings Pier and was composed by Jonathan Dove, who went on to write two more community operas for Ashford and Peterborough. The youth operas Misper (1997) and Zoë (2000) and the Hip Hop version of Così fan tutte – School 4 Lovers (2006) brought the community to Glyndebourne with the operas presented on the main stage.  Through this work Glyndebourne’s education department has sought to build wider audiences for opera and gained a reputation for presenting innovative and groundbreaking work with young people.

Knight Crew (2010) was their latest initiative, placing work with young people and the community centre-stage with a new opera commission and a programme of participatory and work related learning.

More information about Glyndebourne Education can be found on their website: http://www.glyndebourne.com/education/ .

Information about the opera Knight Crew can be found on the website http://www.knightcrewopera.com/ .