From September 2024 to September 2025, MTW worked across Rhondda Cynon Taf to explore opera as storytelling in music — and as an expressive form for anyone and everyone.

Our year-long programme consisted of three strands:

Future Directions RCT

Future Directions brought together neurotypical and neurodivergent, learning disabled and autistic young adults aged 16–25. Participants collaborated to explore storytelling in music and co-create a brand-new digital opera.

The creative process included two intensive residencies and a series of workshops across RCT, led by MTW’s team of artists and facilitators. The resulting digital opera premiered as an MTW production online and was also showcased in a live performance at the Parc and Dare.

Learn more about the Future Directions programme here.

New Notes: RCT young music-creators programme

New Notes was a collaboration between MTW and Sinfonia Cymru supporting young composers and music-creators aged 14–18 from across RCT.

Participants developed original pieces of music which were workshopped, recorded, and performed live by musicians from Sinfonia Cymru — offering a unique opportunity to learn directly from professional artists and see their work come to life.

Full details about the New Notes scheme can be found here.

The Echoes Return Slow

A new music and film piece by Welsh composer Luke Lewis, The Echoes Return Slow draws on recorded interviews with miners in Treorchy from the 1950s, and extracts from one of the earliest feminist films, The Women of the Rhondda (1960s).

Performed by Sinfonia Cymru and conducted by Iwan Teifion Davies, with video by Simon Clode and sound design by Luke Lewis, the work invited audiences to reflect on the voices of the past — and what they reveal about life in the valley today.

Culmination Event — 11 September 2025

All three strands came together at a final public performance at the Parc and Dare, showcasing:

• The new pieces by young composers from across RCT

• The RCT Future Directions company’s digital opera on the big screen

• A full performance of The Echoes Return Slow

The event sparked discussion, pride, and inspiration — demonstrating how opera can tell powerful stories about who we are in Wales today.