English Touring Opera

We are very proud too announce that English Touring Opera has been selected as the next recipient of the David Bedford Music Education Award in recognition of their ambitious outreach programme.

English Touring Opera’s winning project is ‘Laika the Spacedog’, a new opera for children aged 7 to 11.  With a particularly exciting new score by Russell Hepplewhite, the opera will explore the origins of the space race and, in particular, the story that led to the first animal in space: Laika, the Russian stray, who found fame as the tragic pioneer of the Soviet cosmonaut programme.  While the opera will be very educational (based on principles of strong and clear science), it will first and foremost provide children with an engaging musical experience.