Education Projects:

for Music, English/Drama, History

All these projects are based around music from Shakespeare’s time.

There are three programme areas designed specifically for those studying music, English (or drama) and history.

All use music as a basis, expanded with readings as appropriate: several areas are common to all programmes. The music & English/drama programmes include workshop and performance elements.

The Food of Love

This programme uses the music in Shakespeare’s plays to explore the musical scene during Shakespeare’s life. This was one of the richest periods in our musical history and we include both the sophisticated music of the court, and popular dance music and ballads.

An introduction to the major families of instruments is given with contemporary accounts of who would have played them, and arrangements of suitable pieces will be provided to enable children to play and join in using their own instruments. Older players are shown how to play in a period style on modern instruments. There will also be an easy Shakespeare song to learn. Music can be supplied to teachers before the workshop in all transpositions and clefs including suitable parts for guitarists.

The Great Globe Itself

A chance for English & Drama students to see how Shakespeare uses music to enrich the drama. The songs, dances & incidental music will be performed just as they were in his theatre, and placed in their context. Contemporary descriptions of stagecraft and acting styles will also be presented, and the types of theatre described. There will be an easy song to learn and scenes with music chosen for pupils to join in.

Circa 1600

Designed with History students in mind, this programme brings the period alive through song and dance. Shakespeare’s theatre is the centrepiece, and passages from the plays about daily life are expanded with music and contemporary accounts of subjects including: rogues & vagabonds; the sea; the court; witchcraft & superstition; foreigners; and London.

Elements of all these programmes can be combined, and packages designed to suit pupils from the top end of primary school right through to A level.