Commissioned by Longman

Complete performers' pack on sale

  • rec/tuned & untuned perc
  • chorus
  • 10 solo voices
  • 25 min

Programme Note

Jupiter Landing is a short music-theatre work (duration about 25 minutes) designed for performance by eight- to eleven-year-olds. Ten solo parts, two separate chorus groups, and a flexible orchestra of classroom instruments give plenty of scope for the involvement of a large number of children at all ability levels. The first performance was given by nine and ten-year-olds, with a cast of 58, and an orchestra of 19.

The story concerns the adventures of a space-struck child, Pat, who befriends a group of stranded space people from Jupiter, and helps them to rejoin their spaceship. Enlisting the help of Pat's toys, the company fire the anti-gravity guns, and set out on a perilous journey through time and space, encountering a fierce army of Space Monsters on the way.

The scene is Pat's bedroom, which must transform itself into outer space, and revert to the bedroom again at the end of the piece.