Darwin’s Dream is a sparkling new piece of music-theatre written by composer Graham Treacher and zoologist Stephen Webster, it gives a revitalised musical slant on Darwin’s life and theories of evolution. Young singers from KEVICC took a major part in this exciting new work when it was performed at the Rivera International Centre Torquay on Tuesday 27 June 2006.
The multi-media work featured a cast of over 150 children drawn from KEVICC and from primary schools in South Devon, they performed Graham Treacher’s score alongside professional opera-singers and orchestral musicians. In addition to the composed sections, some of the primary school children created their own musical sound-worlds using natural materials such as stone, slate and water.
The piece charts the history of the world from the Big Bang to the present day through the science, ideas and dreams of Charles Darwin. Darwin was an enthusiastic father of a large family and involved his children in his work. Similarly, in Darwin’s Dream, children are central to the journey the audience takes, as Darwin visits the rainforests and Galapagos Islands, and sends the children out to discover our origins.
The stage set employed a huge variety of multi-media techniques. A wide array of images – including deep-sea and computer-animated DNA strings – provided by the country’s leading natural history photographers were projected onto massive screens and ‘body-monitors’ fixed onto the cast.
The Darwin’s Dream project recently recruited Professor Lord Robert Winston as its patron. Lord Winston is known to millions as the face behind the BBC series The Human Body, Secret Life of Twins and Superhuman.
The Darwin’s Dream project was funded by a Wellcome Trust Society Award, Arts Council England, Devon Music Service, Dartington Plus, Dartmouth Extended Learning Community and the Golsoncott Foundation.
The Darwin Music Theatre Project Team
Composer: Graham Treacher
Librettist: Stephen Webster
Director & dramaturg: Philippe Cherbonnier
Designer: Angela Simpson
Visual artist: Raine Smith, working with wildlife photographer Ben Osborne
Children’s Directors: Jenny Kinder and Jill Bird
Interlude co-ordinator & sound artist: Duncan Chapman
Producer: Judith Robinson
The Darwin Music Theatre Artists
Conductor: Graham Treacher
Dr Evelyn Soprano: Catherine May
Charles Darwin Baritone: Robert Rice
Joe, A Fossil-hunter Tenor: Andy Morton
Musicians: The Fibonacci Sequence
Students from
King Edward VI Community College
Children from
Blackawton, Dartmouth, Dartmouth St John’s, Furzeham, Kingswear and Stoke Fleming primary schools
Dartington Plus is a partnership between The Dartington Hall Trust, King Edward VI Community College and University College Falmouth – incorporating Dartington College of Arts. Funded by Arts Council England