Our cross-genre, climate themed event that reimagined Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for the 21st century.
Changing Seasons was our immersive orchestral experience combining music, dance, poetry, video, lighting, and cross-genre collaborations in a thought-provoking reflection on the climate emergency.
Taking inspiration from the environmental themes in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, we expanded Vivaldi’s original, creating an event that was shaped through rich collaboration with local arts groups including Subrang Arts, Queer Croydon, Club Soda, the local Music Education Hub – Croydon Music & Arts – and Croydon poet Jeremiah Brown.
Each collaborator was assigned a season, and worked with us to create newly devised music to perform on stage with our musicians.
By pairing a classical cornerstone with cross-genre commissions and a daytime Foyer Takeover showcasing community talent, Changing Seasons challenged the traditional concert format and demonstrated the impact of bringing outreach together with artistic excellence to create meaningful work.
Changing Seasons reflected the Croydon we all need to be proud of.
Each community partner used their season and accompanying poem as a starting point for their creative process, building on their own practices to create four distinct works.
The resulting four performances were wildly different, rooted in Karnatic Indian classical music (Praveen Prathapan, Subrang Arts – Spring), performance theatre and movement art (Kars Dodds, Queer Croydon – Summer), and electronic music (Luminous Starchild, Club Soda – Autumn), while Croydon Music & Arts used the project as an opportunity to build confidence and creativity with collaborative and accessible composition coaching to create their work ‘W’.
Community Showcase
We put our community centre stage
There’s no better way to celebrate the incredible talent in our home borough.
Supported by
-
Arts Council England
-
The Radcliffe Trust
-
Croydon Council