Fairy tales, myths and music

I'm currently reading fairy tales, and reading books and articles about fairy tales. They are myths which at their best incorporate powerful insights into human experience and human nature, as well as providing pathways for life's challenges. Scholar Jack Zipes says that they direct us towards civilising codes, and enable us to adapt to our environments. He says they both embody and counteract our tendencies towards wickedness and destruction.

The fairy tales in the 19th century, most famously collected and transcribed by the Brothers Grimm, are closer to folk and oral origins than more recent sanitised versions, and convey the dangers and risks of growing up and transitioning from childhood to adulthood, notably through symbols such as the dangers and enchantments of the forest. However they also reflect the patriarchal values of the period, and so problematic qualities are laced in with good. Disneyfication has further depleted fairy tales of their revolutionary knowledge. This is why Zipes's concept of the countertale is so important - as I understand it, this means a  critical retelling of old stories showing how the strong qualities of the old tales that are timeless can survive and speak relevantly to modern audiences.

Because their artistry may seem quaint, their underlying values dated, and their truths therefore occluded, it strikes me that fairy tales are unlikely to seem very relevant to young audiences, including young adults who are just emerging from the transition from childhood to adulthood in a world that is precarious and fragile. Or at least I would like to know if they have any relevance. And because fairy tales operate symbolically (e.g. the wolf at the door of the seven kid goats could represent hunger) I am wondering if it would be useful to explore these questions of current or potential relevance through music.

Building on my previous work with director and librettist Peter Cant (The Feast That Went Off With A Bang, and The Death Of The Chicken) I want to write a short new music drama piece inspired by a Grimm story that is consciously a countertale and even more actively than before investigates the properties of music to encode, communicate and highlight symbols nonverbally. For example, transformation could be heard in a harmony change via a common pivot note; dualities could be heard in major/minor fluctuations, textural change or high and low contrasts; qualities of goodness or transformation could be signalled through electronics or halos of harmonics (as in Harvey's Passion and Resurrection). I want to find out if these symbols can be directly apprehended by young audiences in the context of an unfolding fairy tale narrative, and if such musical effects support perception of the narrative. I want to do this by writing a new piece and presenting it to audiences of different ages, and just asking them.

But I also want to make this new work at the same time as a group of young composers and musicians produce their own versions, their own countertales, of the same story. There would be elements of parallel creation, and co-creation. Parallel creation would simultaneously yield multiple versions springing from the same source - multiple countertales each in its own stylistic world with different emphases, themes, energies and reversals. The styles would range from my own (classical) through those relevant to young adults (rock, alt rock, hip hop, electronic, jazz, dubstep, emo, etc). We would thus end up with three or four versions of the same story presented dramatically through wildly different genres, and it would be interesting to explore the significance of those variations. The co-creation part is particularly interesting to me - my idea is that the process would also involve regular sharing - everyone would share their work in progress each week as we work towards the presentation, giving opportunities for cross-contamination of styles, with the potential for knowledge exchange while maintaining or even sharpening identities. Could this experiment yield insights into how properties of myths and fairy tales are/aren't or could be valued by young people today, and ways in which stylistic collisions could change the capacities of musical languages to symbolise existential themes?