HMDT Music were commissioned to use the six concepts of Creative Education Trust’s integrated curriculum, Knowledge Connected to create a new song cycle.

In Creative Education Trust schools knowledge from the all areas of the curriculum – from the arts, sciences and humanities, from practical subjects, life skills and employability – is linked by the concepts of structure, pattern, meaning, performance, human interaction and practice. Theory of Everything Creative takes each of these concepts as a prompt for a new work of art – in this case a song – much as professional artists and performers might do.

Each school was allocated a concept as a starting point and selected 20 year 8 students to work with a lyricist (Peter Spafford, Harry Oulton, Shey Hargreaves and Derek Martin) to create the words for their song. Once the lyrics had been crafted, 20 talented year 8/9 musicians collaborated for a day alongside a professional composer (Michael Betteridge, Jenny Gould, Matthew King, Richard Taylor and John Webb) to set the lyrics to music. Each school’s choir of year 7-9 students learned and practised the songs with their music teachers in school to prepare for rehearsals with HMDT Music’s artistic team.

The world premiere on 17 July was the culmination of many hours of creativity, concentration and vocal effort. The choirs were both spirited and skilled, and the new works displayed an impressive range of narrative voice, emotional complexity, insight and humour. Watch this space for links to the audio and video recordings, and for the unfolding of  Theory of Everything Creative into other media in future years.