About - Concert Theatre Works

Concert Theatre Works, Inc. is devoted to building new audiences for classical music.

We entice and establish new audiences that include people who might not necessarily engage with concert music, through its format, combining classical music with vibrant storytelling.

We use theatre and spectacle to make live music feel essential.

Believing stories are essential for the future of concert music, CTW tours theatrical elements to orchestras and small ensembles to mount game-changing spectacles in few rehearsals.

We are a US non-profit, a UK limited company, and an international leader in cutting edge performance.

What is ‘Concert-Theatre?’

Music and theatre work together frequently but rarely equally. In opera, acting is subservient to the immense demands of the score. In theatre, musicians play second fiddle to the text. Concert-theatre asks the question: what happens when both elements are included equally?

Humans are inherently interdisciplinary. Concertgoers are usually theatre audiences too, and we all possess finely attuned ears from a lifetime of listening to a broad range of musics. Our productions collapse the illusion of distance between the performing arts by revealing the incredible stories lurking just behind the standard repertoire. This makes musicians more visible, advocating for the survival of your local orchestra, and the preservation of music education. The resulting close collaborations allow artists to grow and appreciate their peers in new ways. Our financial model of touring allows several orchestras to benefit from the expensive commissioning of new work. An average year involves some 40 performances of six different shows touring internationally to 30 cities.

We believe that our framework for an even balance of music and story, in the service of universal themes of our shared experience, is vital to the future of concert music.

We therefore employ actors, projections, lights, sound, illusions, juggling, architecture, and even food to serve an iconic piece of music in a dynamic, original way. We focus on marginalised stories to make the case for the performing arts as an urgent, political act.

Partners include The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Silkroad Ensemble, Shakespeare’s Globe, The National Symphony Orchestra, The Gesualdo Six, Fretwork, City of London Sinfonia, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, The English Concert, The United Strings of Europe, and many others ensembles and festivals.

Venues include The Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl, Buckingham Palace, Washington National Cathedral, Tanglewood Music Center, The Barbican, Chicago Symphony Center, Southbank Centre, Southwark Cathedral, Wilton’s Music Hall, NYC’s United Palace, and Chautauqua.

Conductors include Andris Nelsons, Dame Jane Glover, Charles Dutoit, Bramwell Tovey, Louis Langree, Sakari Oramo, JoAnn Falletta, Trevor Pinnock, Hans Graf and Ken-David Masur. Soloists include Pekka Kuusisto, Alison Balsom, Camilla Tilling, Amanda Forsythe, Amy Dickson, and Soumik Datta. New collaborations include the puppetry masters Gyre & Gimble, composers Max Richter and Joanna Marsh, Gandini Juggling, and Iranian shadow puppeteer Hamid Rahmanian.

What We Do

What is ‘Concert-Theatre?’

Music and theatre work together frequently but rarely equally. In opera, acting is subservient to the immense demands of the score. In theatre, musicians play second fiddle to the text. Concert-theatre asks the question: what happens when both elements are included equally?

We believe that our framework for an even balance of music and story, in the service of universal themes of our shared experience, is vital to the future of concert music.

We therefore employ actors, projections, lights, sound, illusions, juggling, architecture, and even food to serve an iconic piece of music in a dynamic, original way. We focus on marginalised stories to make the case for the performing arts as an urgent, political act.

Venues include The Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl, Buckingham Palace, Washington National Cathedral, Tanglewood Music Center, The Barbican, Chicago Symphony Center, Southbank Centre, Southwark Cathedral, Wilton’s Music Hall, NYC’s United Palace, and Chautauqua.

Board

Board of Advisors

Staff

All contributions are fully tax-deductible as provided by law. Our productions are supported, in part, by private donations and from the Richenthal Family Foundation and the Shirley and Al Evenitsky Fund for Social Justice.

Concert Theatre Works is committed to ensuring the security and protection of the personal information that we process, and to provide a compliant and consistent approach to data protection. If you have any questions related to our GDPR compliance, please contact enquiries@concerttheatreworks.com

Explore our productions to find out more about our singular approach, and how concert theatre can bring something unexpected and exciting into your upcoming season.