Performer, composer / lyricist and musical activist Gwyneth Herbert has been hailed as one the most imaginative and idiosyncratic artists of her generation.

She has collaborated with artists, orchestras, brass bands, kids, pole dancers and puppets to produce a huge canon of work that, whilst challenging expectations, seeks to find dialogue with the world.

Her seventh solo album, Letters I Haven’t Written, was accompanied by an ambitious live show that explored the struggle for connection through film, storytelling and song. As a key part of the project, Gwyn held Letters workshops with different groups from each community, who then joined her onstage for the encore of the performance – listening, learning and making together.

She is the co-creator of six musicals, including Bristol Old Vic’s record-breaking production of “A Christmas Carol” with Tom Morris and Lee Lyford, which – after a sell-out run – saw her donning her red velvet trouser suit and wig for a second year in a row.

Other composition work has involved major commissions from the London Sinfonietta, Mahogany Opera Group, Roman River Festival, Snape Maltings, and conducting her own film score at the BFI.

In artist Mel Brimfield, she has found a kindred spirit. During their longterm collaboration, they’ve put a brass band on Stratford station platform (during rush hour), recruited a choir on wheels in Sheffield, and encased Gwyn in marble as a Lloyd Webber-crooning statue. Find out more about their current installation project, which explored mental health: STAND.

From her rainbow isolation pod in Hastings, Gwyn is staying connected with the music of the world through several new commissions: an opera with Kenyan storyteller Ogutu Muraya about the Mau Mau Rebellion, a musical with playwright Finn Beames about pole dancing in the Cotswolds, and an animated exploration of climate change with leading video designer Will Duke… and as many kids as she can Zoom into her living room.

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