What
Tête à Tête has teamed up with Baraka Opera Kenya and Across Arts for a UK tour of schools across Cornwall and the North East of England.
In collaboration with Tête à Tête’s Artistic and Music directors, Kenyan composers Shaka Lwaki and Nyokabi Kariūki and UK librettist Namrata Shah, will create a score and text rooted in East African musical traditions & migratory bird song, with a blend of African and Western classical musical styles.
A company of four Baraka Opera Kenya singer-musicians and Across Arts UK producer will tour 10 schools to lead workshops & perform for Key Stage 2, Year 5 & 6 (ages 10 & 11) school children.
Partnering with North Tyneside Music Education Hub and Cornwall Music ASONE, the tour prioritises schools with little or no music provision, among England’s most deprived 10%.
A skilled music educator will develop curriculum-linked resources, with pre-show materials offering cultural and geographical context, and post-show tools reinforcing learning in music and geography and tools to support ongoing partnering of the English & Kenyan schools.
Each visit will feature on the day workshops where the children learn Swahili lyrics, body percussion, and traditional call-and-response techniques, followed by the performance presented by four performers accompanied by an environmental video.
The Rain Show was born out of a musical work commissioned & produced by Baraka Opera Kenya that toured Kenyan schools in 2024. The development of this work into a UK-Kenya collaboration will see the work rehearsed at Baraka Opera Kenya’s new opera centre based in Nairobi and the company travel to the UK specifically to deliver this project in these schools.
Who are Baraka Opera Kenya?
Through the multidisciplinary genre of opera, BOK aims to promote the best of African artistic voices; telling our stories, dancing our dreams, playing our rhythms, sharing our joys as well as our struggles and rewriting our histories and our aspirations, with the fresh paint of our hope for the future.
Who are Across Arts?
Led by opera producer Helene Mathiesen, Across Arts is a newly-established CIC designed to establish lasting cross-border partnerships between artists and organisations in Kenya and the UK – enriching the operatic landscape with new stories, artistic voices, and cultural perspectives that are often underrepresented.
Want to find out more? Email: info@tete-a-tete.org.uk
Image (C) Baraka Opera Kenya
