Song Story 2025
“Song Story 2025–Vibrant Verdi!” took place in the Spring and Summer terms in 2025. Resources were sent out in advance and then the Song Story team visited each of the 5 schools taking part across the second half term, working with groups to create and build a performance based on the story of Guiseppe Verdi, a famous composer!
83 young people and 21 of their schools’ staff took part in the sessions and they did the final performances to audiences of 135. We were also able to enter most of them for their Discover or Explore Arts Award qualifications as part of the project.
The young people developed the performance through a series of “tasks”, there were movement/acting tasks, playing (instruments) tasks and singing (song writing) tasks. They explored all of Verdi’s famous tunes, the ones we all sing along with but don’t know why we know them! They wrote and sang some fantastic lyrics for the “Forza del destino” overture, which became “What’s For Lunch?” .
They played chimes and castanets in “La donna è mobile…” and after some excellent acting of a scene from a sad part of Verdi’s life, they persuaded him to write his famous “Va pensiero” chorus which they then sang as a beautiful song about how much their home, Somerset, means to them.
There was also marching and dancing, some excellent jokes and a lot of Italian words: Mamma Mia!!!
What is Song Story?
“I think Song Story is a moment in the year when the focus is purely on what the students can do, in an entirely inclusive environment. A ‘deficit model’ is often applied to people with learning disabilities, but we (Jackdaws) assume that all children are musical and that all are able to take part, with the responsibility for finding out how sitting with us.
“Students respond wholeheartedly, and often in an embodied and unfiltered way, as they listen and more importantly play the music of that year’s composer. Working with them and hearing and seeing their performances is a joy and a privilege.
“They are intrigued by the lives of the composers – the when, where and how they wrote – and will remind us of previous musicians and sing us bits of the music. While learning about Verdi this year, we would be regaled by the “da da da duuuum” of Beethoven’s fifth from last year.
“All music is to be celebrated, and this is a chance to share our enthusiasm and expertise in classical music with students who are often more open minded than their adults.
–Kate Adams (MA Music in Development, Song Story team member)
“Though I’ve worked with Jackdaws often before, as a course leader and singer with operaPlus, this was my first time involved with the Song Story project, and I was blown away by the experience. The level of creativity and music making from the children was joyous to behold.
“As a musician I was very much kept on my toes, moving from somewhat rusty transposition skills on the keyboard, to the violin and of course singing! It was excellent to have such direct and immediate engagement and reaction – and creative input – in the activities.
“The strength of the singing, and some excellent jokes will stick with me as memories for a long time… and also I think my best ever review when one child responded to the question “What is opera?” with the answer: “Owain!”.
–Owain Browne (Opera singer, educator and Song Story team member)
Our projects are only possible because of the amazing support we receive from funders and private individuals.
If you would like to support our programme you can do so in a range of ways, we are very grateful for all of the support we receive.
We are indebted to these funders for making this project possible:
