A Day at School with a Difference

Micro Oper Munich

Munich’s Micro Oper (Micro Opera) is a meeting point for various different art forms. The ensemble includes singers, musicians, fine artists, actors, dancers and the audience. Munich’s Micro Oper sees itself as a lab for interdisciplinary musical experiments.

Based on the story Something Else by Kathryn Cave, Cornelia Melián developed a micro opera that is both surprising and loving as well as sensual in its treatment – an opera in which 15 children aged 6 to 9 years old act under the direction of choirmaster Yoshihisa Matthias Kinoshita. Juliane Klein wrote the music which not only includes speaking and singing voices and the grand piano but also toy cars, table-tennis balls, rainmakers, music boxes, cell phones, kitchen equipment and much more besides. Her music combines tonal and atonal structures and through characteristic leitmotifs it provides a spectrum of suspense that makes the topic of "being different" both simply and profoundly accessible to children. Here the pianist charges two toy cars over the piano keys and the ensuing glissandi are accentuated by the unnerving ringing of two cell phones, birthday whoops and the sound of kitchen equipment – music that is clearly "something else". The children contribute to events with building blocks of sound like onomatopoeic sound surfaces, multi-layered choruses of voices, invented creations that are something else, memorable melodies as well as playful activities ideal for joining in. Original action is combined with the magical poetry of sound into a blend that especially fascinates children of primary school age arousing their curiosity. Somehow Different tells the story of a friendship and is a plea for the appeal of being different, also not least in New Music. In the daytime workshops held at different Munich primary schools Micro Oper Munich will not only present the composition but also re-develop and invent several elements of the performance together with the children in schools.

2009/2010 School Year
Munich Primary Schools

Further Information:
www.micro-oper.de