Keiskamma Music School's Jen Hoyer says...

We were delighted to spend two days with the team from Opera for Change, a group from the United Kingdom that has been travelling from Nairobi to Cape Town on a pilot project with the goal of introducing the world of opera to communities across Africa. This initiative is providing local children with the opportunity to express themselves while interacting with the various components of opera: music, movement, and theatre. In preparation for this workshop we learned about Mozart’s Magic Flute, an opera that contains all the elements for a classic opera hit: love, hate, revenge, and an angry mother. We even learned to play some music from the opera on our recorders.

Andy Staples of Opera for Change led us in creating our own opera about a fantastical world filled with dragons, unicorns and magicians. He also brought a portable recording studio that allowed students to interact with recording technology and try their hand at recording their own music.

Watch the video of our two days with Opera for Change highlights some of these fun activities.