Join Theatre Composer and Director Anna Pool for an interactive session about how music and sound can help us create rich worlds on stage, and have a go at writing some of your own music for a scene.
In the first part of the session, we will listen to, watch and discuss clips of theatre music - what is it being used for why does it work? Why doesn't it work? What is it trying to tell us about the world, characters and emotions of the show in front of us? The second half of the session becomes more practical using scenarios and scenes, groups will create live music/sound to put into practice what we've learned.
Enjoying playing an instrument or singing would be an asset to this session but is absolutely not required. Having an understanding of how music and sound works can be a key skill for all kinds of theatrical storytellers from directors to designers to performers, so please do not think this isn't for you just because you don't want to be a composer
Anna Pool
Anna Pool is a Composer, Director and Performer, working in the UK and internationally. She writes music for theatre which deepens understanding of story worlds, and connects people to the history of the places they live.
As a Composer and Musical Director, projects include: More...Ghost Stories by Candlelight (HighTide), Return of the Unknown (Marlowe Canterbury), Medieval Miracles (Eastern Angles) and Salt (Contemporary Ritual Theatre). Her songs have been heard far and wide, from Radio 3 and Radio 6 Music to Secret Garden Party and Celtic Connections. Currently, she is composing Mother Trucker, a song cycle exploring the lives of female truckers (Spitalfields Festival).
As a Director, work includes Acis and Galatea, The Runaway Royal (Opera North), These Wondering Stones (Barbican), SCRAWW (Hall for Cornwall) and Dust Child (English Touring Opera). Her production of Kurt Weill’s musical, Lady in the Dark (Opera Zuid) won Place de l’Opera’s Opera of the Year 2022 in the Netherlands. She is currently the Associate Director on the UK Tour of Little Shop of Horrors (Bolton Octagon/ Theatre by the Lake) and the musical adaptation of New York Times’ bestseller, The Book Thief (DEM/Leicester Curve).