Children’s Opera and Music Drama

Music Drama for Young People is a professional guide for musical storytellers. Specifically, those who wish to create engaging, meaningful and relevant opera and music drama for young audiences.

The book arises firstly from research and practice in the field of children’s opera creation and moves further afield to include musicals, ballet, and hybrid orchestral/chamber music involving musical storytelling. Containing researched-informed, practice-led tools that will assist any creator in the planning, writing and composition of a music drama work for children, this book is designed to be used by creators of small to large-scale productions. These include a useful discussion and analysis of child audience developmental levels that inform dramatic themes and concepts of resonance for young audiences, storyboards, characterisation models, process cycles, formatting guides, and tips for successful collaboration and project management.

Creators of music drama who are looking for thoughtful, specialised approaches to young audiences will find this book valuable. They may be a composer needing practical score planning tools, a music educator searching for a practical storyboard to plan a work for children, a performer wanting to understand what better resonates with a young audience, or a librettist creating a story with engaging and age-appropriate story themes for children. It also has broader applications to researchers and students looking for models to utilise or adapt to their individual practice’s needs; with tried and successful practice-led methodological tools developed and utilised successfully within research and industry settings.