Toi Toi 2015 - crowdfunding

Eight Songs for a Mad King
Helios Chamber Opera at the Grimeborn Festival 2014

The Helios Collective is a young opera company with exciting plans. The group is in fact an expansion of Helios Chamber Opera and in this form projects have included The Bear Goes Walkabout (see my review), and a pairing of Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King with Walton's Facade (see my review). The group recently gave the Russian premiere of the Maxwell Davies's piece. Under artistic director Ella Marchment and newly appointed music director Noah Mosely, the group plans a series of opera club nights at the CLF Art Cafe in Peckham. Called Toi Toi 2015 these will start next year on 23 and 24 January 2015 and are intended to provide a platform for young artists and to expand the accessibility of opera by combining contemporary opera and popular music in a friendly context. 

The evenings will be combining leading London bands, rock and electric opera groups, classical–jazz fusion groups, and politically aware modern classical operas, all in two evenings of entertainment. Toi Toi 2015's aim is to 'show that opera is as alive and as modern as the other genres of music'. There indie rock bands, classical jazz crossover in addition to an amazing total of eight new opera commissions!

The CLF Art Cafe, despite its name in fact a multi-level warehouse space, is quite a tricky space to use (see my review of Filthy Lucre 3:Cults there), but Helios has so far proved highly imaginative in both its use of space and imaginative approach to both artists and programming so their new venture  is certainly one to watch. To help the group start them off they have initiated a crowd-funding campaign at Crowd funding page, do visit the page to help.