Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

The Story: Mrs Giggly, head teacher at Mrs Giggly's Magic School sits sobbing at her desk. She has lost her belief in magic and all her students are sad and miserable. For over 1000 years they have not been able to learn magic and their world is very grey.

One day, in another land far away, a little girl called Shauna is in her bedroom playing a game of hide-and-seek with her imaginary friends. When she follows them into her toybox, she is all of a sudden catapulted into a colourful world of swirling rainbows!

Shauna grips onto her wheelchair as she rides one of the rainbows at lightening speed all the way to another toybox at Mrs Giggly's Magic School.

Shauna hears Mrs Giggly sobbing about being a teacher of magic but does not know how to teach anymore. The possibility of learning magic excites Shauna and she peeps her head out and asks Mrs Giggly to be her magic teacher. Mrs Giggly is blown off her broom by the optimism of her unexpected visitor and the task of teaching magic begins again!

During one of Mrs Giggly's lessons, a troupe of students from another magic school called 'The School of Wahumbungldeen' (5000 galaxies away) appear. They tell Mrs Giggly that their teacher, Mr Meanie is using his magical powers to turn his students into slime balls. Desperate to put an end to this, they ask Mrs Giggly for help and she eagerly agrees.

So Mrs Giggly and her students hop into their super-sonic-time-travel-machines and travel to the School of Wahumbungldeen where they meet the very mean Mr Meanie. However, they soon learn the reason why he is so mean and this makes Mrs Giggly and her students very sad.

As a child, all Mr Meanie ever wanted was to be a glamorous camel - a camel he called Countess Cameltoe. However, he was bullied very badly for this and it led him to become bitter and mean. As an adult, he became a teacher so he could take out his anger on his students. If anyone found out his biggest secret (that he wanted to be a glamorous camel) he would turn them into slime balls.

Mrs Giggly knows that only kindness will heal him and save Mr Meanie's students from a future as a slime ball. So she casts a spell on Mr Meanie, who, for the first time in his life, feels kindness. It is the most marvellous feeling he has ever felt and he begins, for the first time in his life, to be kind.

And this is the meaning of Mrs Giggly's most important lesson: You are made of magic, there is nothing you can't do! The world's greatest power lies within you...

All information on Mrs Giggly's Magic School is avilable at:

http://www.chloecharody.com/mrsgigglysmagicschool

Work Details

Year: 2021

Instrumentation: 2 sopranos, mezzo soprano, violin, piano.

Duration: 20 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Commission note: Commissioned by HomePlay with funds provided by Arts Council England.

First performance: 10 Aug 21. Film studio in Berlin