by composer Angela Rice
ComposeArts proudly presents the World-Premiere production of The Royal Red Bird touring the elementary schools throughout the Commonwealth through Spring 2026 as the selected featured work for the University of Kentucky's Schmidt Opera Outreach Program (SOOP)!
This magical and musical production will feature an exciting blend of singers, puppeteers, and dancers (from the Lexington Ballet and Kentucky Ballet Theatre). Interactive and fun, The Royal Red Bird provides opportunities for some students to join in the fun as part of the performance!
Children in Kindergarten through 5th grade will enjoy this 35-minute musical followed by a question-and-answer session.
In the mysterious and beautiful Birdland, the Royal Red Bird watches over all of the songs that birds sing all day long. One day, disaster strikes, and Henry–a helpful human–saves the Royal Red Bird. This act of kindness ripples throughout the natural world. Years later, when one of Henry's grandchildren falls ill, all the birds in the world race against time to find a cure, proving that one small act of kindness can change the world.
This important new work by Angela Rice and inspired by the illustrations of Lindsey Kiser celebrates kindness, working together, and the beauty of the natural world.
About the Musical
Fully staged and costumed musical for kids. Interactive where audience members can take part in the show!
From the Director
Of all the living creatures, great and small, none elicit a mixture of delight and wonder quite like birds: the dancers of the sky. Artists and architects, scientists and scholars, cast their eyes heavenward with envy and awe, and with the hope of borrowing just a bit of their avian magic for everything from sonnets to spacecraft.
Angela Rice isn't the first musician to create a composition inspired by birds, but surely her work must be among the most beautiful of its kind. She has translated her obvious love of the natural world into a unique fantasia, filled with a spectacular complement of our fine, feathered friends of every size, shape, color, and character. Her music does what birds do: it flits and flies, swoops and swoons. And in its final, climatic moments, it soars.
Today's performance asks you, this piece's first-ever audience, to cast your own eyes skyward and employ your imagination toward what this production will one day be. Months from now, The Royal Red Bird will embark on a touring premiere, fully outfitted with costumes, puppets, props, and sets. The visual presentation will be as colorful as the many birds that appear, and as imaginative as the story that brings them all together. Today, you are treated to a glimpse of the first moments of the collaborative process and to hear the first stirrings of an important new work.
We invite you, every now and then, to close your eyes as you listen and imagine the mountains, the sea, and the air. Imagine the sky filled with birds of every kind, and share the fond astonishment of Henry, the kind man who discovers that a small act of compassion can inspire a lifetime of friendship. And adventure.
Special Thanks To:
