Composer & Lyricist YEAR TWO
Having completed the first year of workshops, composers and lyricists form a year-long partnership in their second year, to work on a single project of their choice. This challenge is focusing on building an entire score, usually from an existing source (e.g. romantic comedy, play). They must balance the dramatic and rhythmic needs of the story with musical structure, shaping the score to offer the audience an experience that is theatrically satisfying.
In their second year, composers and lyricists develop a musical voice that is uniquely their own but also serves the individual project. Members address specific problems as they arise and find creative answers to offer a rich and realistic collaborative experience. Great emphasis is placed on the specificity and intention of each song within the framework of a musical book. Eight song types are discussed and assigned, to broaden members' experience of musical theatre conventions and expectations.
At the end of the year, each team presents a section of their piece within a showcase to an invited audience.
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Workshop faciltators
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CAROLINE HUMPHRIS
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Caroline has enjoyed a busy and varied career as a musical director, supervisor and arranger for over three decades, working across the UK, in the West End and on Broadway.
Caroline was musical director for the Menier Chocolate Factory’s critically-acclaimed production of Sunday in the Park with George, which won five Olivier awards and transferred to Broadway. She went on to music supervise Little Shop of Horrors, They’re Playing Our Song, Aspects of Love, and Trevor Nunn's A Little Night Music which also received a Broadway transfer. She led the successful Menier Musical Theatre Summer School programme.
Caroline works at the UK’s leading drama schools as an audition panellist, musical director and coach, and is on the teaching staff at the Royal Academy of Music. Alongside her dual roles as facilitator and board member for BML, Caroline is a great supporter of new writing, and she also works to improve opportunity and career progression for female musical directors and composers, through independent mentoring and job creation.
Caroline arranged, supervised and orchestrated Tim Firth's musical This Is My Family for Chichester Festival Theatre, which was published by Concord Theatricals in 2023, and was musical supervisor for the new Stiles and Drewe musical Identical.
ADEY GRUMMET
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Adey has (thoroughly) enjoyed a long career as a singer and actor, conductor, animateur, deviser and experimenter and historian. Whilst her performing career has taken her from original casts of Cats and Les Mis to a solo opera in Buenos Aires and conducting in the Royal Albert Hall, her writing has encompassed several genres. Her opera was produced by Tete a Tete, her ‘instant’ kids’ story-telling show by BAC, her poetry published by Saccharine Poetry, her two history books by Shoving Leopard and Scala, and she has written lyrics for school creative projects, numerous choral and opera projects and classical recitals.
She has worked as a lyricist for several projects with ENO’s outreach department and she mentored Liz Carr in the writing of Assisted Suicide the Musical.
She writes regularly with composer and MD Michael Henry. Current projects include a show set in la grande siecle in Paris, a piece for a US/UK Black Lives Matter choral songbook and a piece for Music For Youth’s massed ensembles (in the RAH again) this November.
She was a founder member of BML and proud to serve its board for eight years.