Having the musicians interact with the audience, and letting the children see them up close was amazing!
Musical Beasts is a live musical experience for all ages, but particularly suitable for schools, special schools and families.
With musicians drawn from our acclaimed Snowman and Wallace & Gromit tours, we have arranged a programme of family-friendly music for wind quintet and piano.
These performances are interactive, with musicians in costume engaging with the audience whilst performing from memory, offering a unique perspective to see and experience music-making up close.
A perfect combination
The programme begins with Prokofiev's classic symphonic fairy tale Peter and the Wolf, specially abridged and arranged for our players. This is semi-staged in costume and performed from memory.
After, there is a showing of the animated film of David Litchfield’s award-winning book, The Bear and the Piano, with narration recorded by Joanna Lumley and original music by Daniel Whibley played live by the musicians.
Ideal for schools
Our package brings music into the heart of schools enabling us to be flexible and offer differentiated performances according to the needs and abilities of year groups or individual classes.
Our performances are particularly accessible by SEN children and special schools.
Since premiering in March 2022, the results have been overwhelmingly positive, providing some of the most meaningful and profound responses ever experienced by our musicians, the children and their teachers.
Learning resources and Arts Award
Schools also get access to an extensive bank of teaching and learning resources to use prior to and after the performance.
This includes a new song to sing and sign, as well as the chance to participate in a live online drawing session with author / illustrator David Litchfield as an optional extra.
Children can also complete a prepared workbook and achieve Arts Award Discovery.