Joanna Ward: The Open Fund for Music Creators

For:

New opera ‘The Garden Party’ - composed by Joanna Ward

PRS for Music Foundation are supporting the collaborative development and composition of an experimental opera based on Katherine Mansfield’s short story ‘The Garden Party’, with music created by composer/performer Joanna Ward. The libretto has been created from Mansfield’s short story by Joanna Pidcock. Katherine Mansfield is one of New Zealand’s most prominent modernist writers, and this story specifically explores female subjectivity and class disparity within the colonial context of New Zealand.

This composition will, from the outset, involve Ward working with a team of exciting young female creatives in a deeply collaborative process. Ward will develop a score using conventional elements alongside intimate graphic notations, text descriptions and colour, in order to invite the performers’ own ideas into the creation of the work. Aesthetically, foley sound, live electronics, and found sound will be woven into a score which also uses more conventional voices and instruments.

The Garden Party team are currently working towards a Research and Development week at the Royal Opera House’s Lindbury Theatre in April 2020, exploring scenes from the work in progress, after which they will be aiming for a full production in 2021.

Joanna Ward is a composer currently studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her work to date incorporates influences from diverse musical genres, uses tape, live electronics, and innovative and interactive scoring techniques, and is in dialogue with her own and others’ experimental performance practice. She is actively engaged with the politics of gender, class, taste, and decoloniality.