Freddie Wake-Walker

Last chance to double your gift this Christmas 🎄🎁 Our Artistic Director, @freddiewakewalker thanks all of those that have already supported our Big Give Christmas Challenge, and urges those that have not yet donated to do so fast! The campaign runs until midday on Tuesday 9 December and we still need to raise £5,740 from the public (which will be doubled by our generous pledgers and Big Give Champion BeauxArtz) for our full 2026 Snappy Operas Festival programme in 26 mainstream and SEND schools to go ahead. Please donate what you can, and give the gift of Snappy Operas this Christmas! Links in bio!

🌟 It starts TODAY! Help us give the gift of music and theatre to children who need it most. 🌟 From midday today until midday on 9 December, every donation you make to Mahogany Opera through the Big Give Christmas Challenge will be DOUBLED - meaning twice the opportunity, twice the creativity, and twice the magic for children across the UK. For many of the 1,000 young people taking part in our Snappy Operas Festival 2026, this will be their very first experience of live music, theatre, and creative expression. Your support helps children of all abilities - including those in isolated and underserved areas - discover confidence, joy, and a voice they didn’t know they had. As one Year 5 pupil told us: “Normally I’m too shy to speak, but when I do Snappy Operas I feel I can fly.” ✨ You can make more moments like this possible. ✨ You can allow children to shine. ✨ And today, your gift goes twice as far. 👉 Watch the video to see the impact. 👉 Donate now and double your donation: one gift, twice the magic. Thank you for helping us open doors for children who deserve every chance to thrive. 💛 Donate now and double your gift! See the links in our bio.

All welcome to this meeting...

Our second Circle of Curiosity This time in Berlin Circle of generosity How to fill an empty space? What is not rhythm? Language as music - music as language The joy and importance of eating together a safe space | a brave space | a fragile space @circlesofcuriosity @yifan2everywhere @ming.apur @etoilechaville @norathiele_music @lauraroblesmarcuello

Saying goodbye to the west coast and the Pacific Ocean. You know a show has gone well when the standing ovation starts before the piece has ended! Had a fantastic time in San Fran - congratulations to everyone involved! Thought I’d share my programme note, or letter to Lenny: Dear Mr Bernstein, I have been asked to write a director’s note for the programme for our production of Candide. Why do I always find it so difficult? I mean, the production should be able to speak for itself afterall. I have a fear of telling the audience what to think and feel, believing passionately that an audience’s imagination during a performance is the greatest creative act. I also worry that programme notes tend towards over-simplicty or pretentiousness. I know how much you enjoyed working with young people. I think you would have really loved this group of students. They turned up well prepared, committed, willing to explore and bringing their own ideas and opinions. On the first day I asked them to write a letter to a guardian angel – someone dear to them with whom they can share their hopes and fears about this production. I will also ask the audience something: “Think of someone dear to you who throughout your life has inspired you to keep going in spite of everything.” Life is afterall an Absurd Cabaret where moments of extreme joy sit side-by-side with unbearable brutality. What is it that keeps us moving into the next scene, the next dance number of life, our heads unbowed, if not another person? Working on an opera transports me in time and place to where and when the piece was written and, more wonderfully, invites me to step inside the persona of the creator. You have taken, with such sympathy, all the anger and frustration, rejection and tribulation that Voltaire poured into his account of Candide and infused it with not only your loving acceptance of human fraility but that complementary or rather contradictory aspect of human nature – our need to be loved. How are you able to express so astutely the human condition in your music? Where did your vast reserves of love come from? (Continued in comments…)

I took my first driverless taxi yesterday. Actually it felt incredibly safe. They hoot their horn at other cars, speed up a little bit to go through the amber light and tell you off for waving out of the window! What are we humans all going to do when there’s nothing more to do?

@yifan2everywhere & @freddiewakewalker @thefeuerlecollection last night listening to @reisonkuroda playing contemporary work on the Shakuhachi surrounded by the extraordinary pieces in the permanent exhibition #japaneseflute #contemporaryart #mingdynasty #koku #tomoyayokokawa #invisiblemoon #yukuwabara #lingeringcloudsandclearmoon

@iona_mullen_ramsay & @btennick making a brand new #snappyopera at Kildrum Primary School in Cumbernauld with @stephenhdeazley @freddiewakewalker @dunedinconsortscot @mahoganyopera It was a day full of fantastical ideas, focussed energy and effervescent joy! Watch out for the latest new Snappy Opera (the 14th) coming to a school near you… #snappyoperas #newmusic #youthmusic #musicinschools #scotland #cumbernauld #opera #newopera #musictheatre #newmusictheatre #landrights #islandstory #ice #maps #islands

On our way to Nuorgam, Finland, @annamaret ’s home village, we saw the northern lights. @renhuvuddans @tuomasrounakari and @hivshu have all heard its mysterious sound before, and they come to the same conclusion – like a choir of crystal glass.#circlesofcuriosity #northernlights #nuorgam #sami #inuit #nature #sound #naturesounds

I first came to Nuorgam, the north most town in Finland Lapland in search of Sami culture in 2013. From then on, indigenous culture from the world has been my life research: their music, rituals and the profound spirituality woven into them. Hypnotised I have been, obsessed I have been, and lost in trance. A couple of days ago, with @freddiewakewalker we brought other musicians and dancers back to Nuorgam as the first residency of our new project @circlesofcuriosity ! Circles of Curiosity is a space for the sharing and disseminating of wisdom and techniques in the fields of performance and ritual practice. It is a profound manifestation for everyone who’s been participating – if I dare say.! @annamaret , who is a musician and a Sami yoiker based in Nuorgam I interviewed in 2020, whose debut album Dreamscapes transformed me into another sphere. And her music I have looped countless times. Violinist, and ethnomusicologist, dr @tuomasrounakari ‘s understanding of grief has always been a comfort and inspiration. He learned deeply from Karelian culture and his Lament workshop is both personal and universal about the practical way to cry the tears that need to be cried. @renhuvuddans , a Sami dancer who embodies courage and resilience, showed us how to transcend fear and embrace life’s challenges. Inuit elder and storyteller @hivshu is a living testimony that no matter how deeply we’ve been hurt and hurt others, it is possible to get beyond and tell the stories afterwards – that’s Inuit tradition after all. Together, we talked the deep talk, laughed at the jokes only those who have suffered and triumphed can laugh at, and had workshops during the polar night. Touched I have been, proud of myself I have been and experienced Life for real. #circlesodcuriosity #indigenouswisdom #sami #inuit #polarnight #music #workshops #healing #healingjourney

The Circles of Curiosity journey has begun. These last days we opened the circle in the far north with artists/practitioners from Sami, Inuit and Finnish heritage. Last October I participated in a Drum Circle with the Mijikenda people in Malindi, Kenya. Now the dream is to bring everyone together. In spite of extreme differences, common themes are emerging. There will be more circles too. Get in touch if you’re curious… (Soundtrack by Annamaret who invited us to join her in singing a Luohti this week - one of a number of highlights) @hivshu @renhuvuddans @tuomasrounakari @annamaret @yifan2everywhere @maabara_atelier @ogutumuraya @gwyneth_herbert #circlesofcuriosity #indigenous #sami #nuorgam #malindi #inuit #connectingthroughmusic #colonialism #healing #mijikenda #MADCA #drumcircle #lamenting #inbetweencultures #disconnectedfromself #lookingatthewoundtogether #culturebreakdown #radicalacceptance #curiosityleadstogoodintentions

Our first real life residency @circlesofcuriosity in Nuorgam, Finland. Circles of Curiosity is a space for sharing and disseminating wisdom and techniques in performance and ritual practice. @yifan2everywhere @freddiewakewalker @hivshu @tuomasrounakari @annamaret @renhuvuddans And thank you @nordiskkulturfond #circlesofcuriosity #research #sami #finland #nuorgam #art #indigenous #ritual #theatre #music #connectingthroughmusic #inuit #nordicculture