Youth Music Theatre UK

For the past six summers director Kate Burlinson has been weaving her own particular brand of magic on YMT projects – YMT company members on her projects have gone on to work in the theatre and related industries every year with many of them now at drama school of conservatories. She was thrilled to be joining forces with musician/singer/composers Mairi Campbell and David Francis, whose version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was used in the move of Sex and the City, to create a new project for Aberdeen International Youth Festival. It was an ambitious and exciting project involving 36 performers and a group of young musicians.

The material they explored was based on storytelling, in song and spoken work. The Tales themselves were drawn from the work of Duncan Williamson who both in his native Scotland and around the world, is remembered as a truly exceptional storyteller who lived on the road in Scotland and left a legacy of many thousands of traveller's tales.What makes a good story? Can you become a great storyteller? Most great songs in musical theatre tell a story…but storytelling songs come from a much older tradition, of ballads sung to spread the news of the day, to speak of love and loss, injustice and heartbreak, fantasy and harsh realities. As well as using some older stories, they created new ones, based on what the cast felt important, interesting and imaginative. The cast were stretched in every way as they learnt how to deepen their authenticity and presence on stage.