Ruta Vitkauskaite: The Open Fund for Music Creators
For:
Walking Opera in Notting Hill
While working in classical composition (for which awarded PhD at Royal Academy of Music in London), Ruta Vitkauskaite has applied her musical skills in cross genre and interdisciplinary collaborations and solo works that she performs herself (violin, piano, voice, electronics). Most notable are her 10 operas – many of them written in collaboration, one without opera singers, one in the dark, one experienced from within, one on the walk…
Walking Opera in Notting Hill is a site-specific opera in the form of a sound-walk, created with and by local communities. The audience is involved throughout the creation of the opera. First, local communities and visitors of Notting Hill are invited to attend Musical Meetings – a series of voice exploration workshops led by Ruta Vitkauskaite, and singers Elisenda Pujals (Netherlands), Janet Oates (UK), Aasa Nordgren (Sweden), also two ancient songs sutartines explorers Vejuna Zalatyte, Beatrice Bukantyte. Participants encounter the new opera ‘from within’, share stories of their local areas, and together create choral compositions to be used in The Journey.
The Journey is an opera in the form of a sound-walk. Rather than sitting in comfortable opera house chairs, the audience are given headphones and invited for a walk around Notting Hill. The story of the opera unfolds as statues and objects come to life through arias and recitatives, and choruses created by the communities during the Musical Meetings. As a surprise, live characters appear asking the audience to contribute their very own voice for the opera’s finale.