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What is ‘Concert-Theatre?’

Music and theatre work together frequently but rarely equally. In opera, acting is subservient to the immense demands of the score. In theatre, musicians play second fiddle to the text. Concert-theatre asks the question: what happens when both elements are included equally?

Humans are inherently interdisciplinary. Concertgoers are usually theatre audiences too, and we all possess finely attuned ears from a lifetime of listening to a broad range of musics. Our productions collapse the illusion of distance between the performing arts by revealing the incredible stories lurking just behind the standard repertoire. This makes musicians more visible, advocating for the survival of your local orchestra, and the preservation of music education. The resulting close collaborations allow artists to grow and appreciate their peers in new ways. Our financial model of touring allows several orchestras to benefit from the expensive commissioning of new work. An average year involves some 40 performances of six different shows touring internationally to 30 cities.

We believe that our framework for an even balance of music and story, in the service of universal themes of our shared experience, is vital to the future of concert music.

We therefore employ actors, projections, lights, sound, illusions, juggling, architecture, and even food to serve an iconic piece of music in a dynamic, original way. We focus on marginalised stories to make the case for the performing arts as an urgent, political act.