THE PROJECT
Teacup – One Boy’s Story, is a forty-minute multi-modal adaptation of the popular children’s book Teacup, involving music, art and the spoken word. It had its world premier performance at the State Library of Western Australia in January 2017 during the Perth Fringe Festival (the book sold out in Perth within 24 hours of the first performance). Due to the extraordinary feedback from audiences we have been asked to make a CD and DVD of the work available for more people to enjoy.
Matt Ottley (Illustrator and composer), and Music Book (the performers) would greatly appreciate your support to make this happen. We are giving our supporters an exclusive opportunity to purchase a signed copy of the CD and DVD before anybody else gets to see it. It is currently not available anywhere else.
The CD and DVD will include a professional studio recording of the music, whilst the DVD will also contain film footage from some of the live performances, animations and stunning images from the book.
The music for Teacup is scored for a chamber orchestra (piano, violin, cello, double bass, electric organ, pre-recorded natural sounds, a Baroque recorder quartet, two singers and a narrator), and runs for forty minutes. In performance there are accompanying screen images, both still and animated, based on the oil paintings in the book. The whole is a dynamic, multi artistic experience that further explores the themes of love, grief, fear, awe and great joy that are expressed in the book. At times the music is tranquil, poignant and reflective, at other times wild and exuberant.
WHO WE ARE
This project is proudly created by Matt Ottley and Music Book Stories Inc to encourage the love of music, literature and the arts.
Matt Ottley is an award winning Children’s Book Illustrator, highly regarded in Australia and internationally for his distinctive and emotive books. His books have been translated into many different languages. Matt also has a growing reputation as a composer; he was made an endorsed Yamaha Artist in 2014 for his music and has had scores performed by a number of ensembles, including the Elandra Ensemble, The West Australian Symphony Orchestra and most recently, Music Book Stories.
Matt has set a number of his books to music for both children and adults in an ongoing exploration of the possibilities of combining music, visual arts and words into a truly multi-modal experience for audiences.
His latest and most ambitious work in this series is Teacup.
Music Book Stories Inc is an innovative ensemble, combining live classical music with literature for young people through storytelling, dance, song, rhyme, and movement. They are passionate about promoting, educating and encouraging young people’s enjoyment, understanding and appreciation of literature, music and art.
Music Book Stories includes some of Perth’s finest classical musicians and they are proud to partner with Matt on this engaging project.
BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
Teacup, the book – for which the score has been written – is a collaboration with author Rebecca Young, and is an award winning picture book on an epic scale, featuring 18 large-scale oil paintings that immerse the reader into the world of its main character, a boy who has to leave his homeland and find another.
It is an allegorical story that explores themes of migration and displacement. The boy, who sets off to sea in a small boat with only a few possessions, takes a teacup with him that holds earth from where he used to play. It is a story of loss and grief, love and joy, adventure and magic.
In the words of Deborah Ellis from the New York Times:
“’Teacup’ wows with Matt Ottley’s painterly illustrations that use color and light to show a breathtaking planet. In spare, lyrical language Rebecca Young describes the voyage in just enough words to let us know the boy is sometimes sad, sometimes lonely and sometimes purely awed by the majesty of the world around him.”
To create a forty-minute CD and DVD featuring a professional recording of the Teacup score by Music Book Stories Inc performers, and accompanying video footage. Funds will go directly to costs involved with:
We would love to raise more than our target, so we can pay the incredible musicians for their recording time.
Music Book performers and Matt Ottley are all currently donating their time for this recording project as they believe wholeheartedly in the outcome.
A project like this takes an enormous amount of time from the producers and artists.
Matt composed the musical score and produced the accompanying video projections for performance over a period of four intensive months. There was no payment for any of this work. Matt is happy to donate his time to the final goal – encouraging the love of literature and the arts in the next generation.
Most of the time spent by the musicians in rehearsal and during the performance in the Perth Fringe Festival was also unpaid.
The Challenge with all music productions is to create the best live recording as possible. To make sure this happens we are employing the services of a professional engineer and recording studio in Perth, WA, which is an expensive undertaking.
Even if you can’t afford to make a pledge, we would love your help in sharing this and telling others about our project. You just have to copy and paste the following link to share it: https://pozible.com/project/teacup-musical-adaptation-cd-dvd