Musical Portraits has now been running more or less in its present form since 2010, though it has evolved during that time with the teams meeting regularly during the year to find ways to improve the experience for the young people. The four day summer project, free to all participants, begins at the National Portrait Gallery where the group of around 15 young people are able to explore the gallery’s portraits. They discuss them with the lead artist and the composer who help them to make their own visual creations. On day 2, the group move to Wigmore Hall and start developing musical responses to the portraits. At the end of the week, friends and family are invited to a live performance on the Wigmore Hall stage.

Designing and perfecting a project is one of the things that I love most about my job and it is especially true for this particular cohort of children for whom a well thought out project is so necessary; the perfect team in both number and talents, the right spaces and activities that are challenging but accessible. How much better can it get than persuading two iconic cultural organisations to combine their talents and resources!

Musical Portraits forms one of the free projects that Turtle Key Arts run for young people on the Autism spectrum.  Over the last two years we have revived the ten week Turtle Opera model – also for 10-14 year olds – in collaboration with Autism Family Support Oxfordshire and the Oxford University Faculty of Music. We are continuing to run Key Club, our year-long monthly arts club, based at our home the Lyric Hammersmith, which will soon be expanding to double the capacity. Turtle Key Arts involve as many of our theatre, dance and circus collaborators as possible in this work and many of our artists have been inspired by the creativity of the participants. This spring, continuing our exploration of new formats, we helped to run a playwriting project at the Royal Court Theatre for 18 – 24 year olds. Our goal in the next few years is to run regular projects for our ‘bridge’ age group, the 14 to 18 year olds. Our projects run all over the country and like Musical Portraits, build excellent partnerships with venues, orchestras, museums and universities. Due to these collaborations, as a small organisation we can have the greatest impact and we will carry on supporting people with Autistic Spectrum Conditions well into the future.

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Charlotte Cunningham
Charlotte Cunningham

Charlotte Cunningham founded Turtle Key Arts and has produced and co-directed a number of theatre and dance productions with a strong emphasis on physical theatre, dance and devised work. Charlotte’s groundbreaking education and participation projects aim to make high-quality arts accessible to all. Many are aimed at people on the autistic spectrum, notably, Turtle Opera at the Royal Opera House (2001-08), Key Club (2005–09) and currently, in association with the English Touring Opera and the Royal College of Music, Turtle Song, for older people with Alzheimer’s and dementia and their carers). A trainer and consultant to arts organisations working with people with ASD, Charlotte has acted as a dramaturg on Footprints, a national commission from the British Association of Science. She has curated festivals and cabarets. Charlotte is an examiner for the Faculty of Humanities and Arts at the University of Luxembourg. She contributed the chapter on production for Devised and Collaborative Theatre: A Practical Guide (2002).