Primary School Music and Storytelling Project

Music Theatre Wales has been working in collaboration with Sinfonia Cymru on this unique project since 2025, combining storytelling, live music and design to create an engaging and creative experience for young participants and audiences.

Starting as a project that combined storytelling with music, Sinfonia Cymru and Music Theatre Wales’s Schools Storytelling Project has now grown to include a moment of opera, introducing a character who through singing and action, brings a moment of the story to life. MTW commissions an aria for each project from a Welsh composer, with text by the storyteller Tamar Williams, offering the perfect introduction to the vitality and power of opera – to the children and to the artists! 

The project also offers a richly creative opportunity to Year 4 – 6 pupils as they join workshops well ahead of the performance, to create the designs, have an input into the development of the story itself and create the songs they sing as part of the performance. Closer to the performance, MTW’s singer works with the children to support their singing and actions, building their confidence and enriching their experience. This also introduces them to the opera singer, giving them even greater access to the aria.

Below is a taste of the pieces we’ve contributed to previously:

2026:

In 2026, A Song to Change the World drew inspiration from the life of Ethel Smyth and her opera The Wreckers, telling a powerful story of courage, conscience, and the music within us all. When Ethel is imprisoned and can no longer hear her music, she recalls a tale of two children, a stormy sea, and a lighthouse that saved lives, discovering through song that even the smallest voices can create change. Led by storyteller Tamar Eluned Williams and featuring musicians from Sinfonia Cymru alongside MTW collaborator Johnny Herford, the piece included a newly commissioned aria by Claire Victoria Roberts and was developed with creative input from pupils across schools in Mid Wales, touring to school and community locations across the region.

2025:
In 2025, Tŷ Unnos told the story of a mysterious house that appears overnight on a remote hill, offering travellers the best night of their lives — at a cost. When a travelling band becomes trapped inside, they must perform to win their freedom, with the audience deciding who stays and who escapes. Led by storyteller Tamar Eluned Williams and featuring musicians from Sinfonia Cymru alongside MTW collaborator Johnny Herford, the piece was developed with creative input from pupils across schools in Mid Wales and toured a range of school and community locations in March 2025.