Music begins with listening, and so does care for the natural world. OE's learning work brings the two together, helping children and families discover music and nature through their own ears, in concert halls, classrooms, meadows and forests across the UK and Europe.
Music, nature and curiosity
Our workshops put children at the centre of the music-making. Led by our musicians and education specialists, children listen to the sounds around them — birdsong, wind, water, instruments heard up close — and turn what they hear into music of their own, through singing, body percussion, movement and creative play. There are no wrong answers and no need for prior musical experience: just ears, imagination and the world outside the window.
Working with schools, festivals and local educators, we have now reached more than 1,500 children across the UK, Austria and Italy.
Dewi in the Deep
Created with The Opera Story and Charles Court Opera, Dewi in the Deep is a magical children's opera following young Dewi and her pet tortoise Tortellini on an adventure about nature and climate change, with a brilliant score by Joaquim Badia and Lucie Treacher.
OE presented the work at the Royal Ballet and Opera in 2024 and 2025, performing for more than 1,000 children and their families, and the story lives on as an audiobook, narrated for children to enjoy anywhere.
A musical garden
Developed with the Royal Ballet and Opera, our participatory family workshops bring the natural world to life through live music — birdsong and thunderstorms, rivers and forests, animals large and small. First presented in 2025 and now returning each year, the workshops invite children to sing, move, play and conduct alongside OE musicians.
The format has since travelled beyond London, including performances for hundreds of children at the Harrogate International Festivals.
Listening in Mahler's landscapes
On our annual Alpine Tour, education and performance travel together. In the Austrian villages where we perform, children spend a morning outdoors with our musicians, listening to the sounds of their own landscape, hearing instruments played in meadows and beside streams, and discovering how Mahler turned these same sounds into some of the greatest music ever written.
Each workshop ends with a shared performance of the children's own music and a tree planting or other group conservation activity with their families and the wider community. In Steinbach am Attersee, the workshops take place in Gustav Mahler’s Field of Flowers, a nature reserve that OE helped establish with local partners after its first concerts in the village.
Interested in bringing an OE workshop or family performance to your school, festival or venue? Get in touch.