Welcome to Open Your Mouth and Sing
We are Heather Urquhart and Joe Samuel and we have been teaching, performing and experimenting with musical improvisation together for over 15 years. We called ourselves ‘Open your mouth and sing’ because we love to facilitate people’s natural ability to be creative through the spontaneous creation of songs, stories and music. This site contains some of our podcasts, blogs and resources as well as information about our workshops. At this time of writing in 2022 we are running sessions online and can also offer tailored online workshops for your group/workplace/family/community. We are planning on running some workshops in our home town of Brighton in 2023. We have recently put together a package for your team to get access to our facilitation online. To find out more, visit our Remote Improv page. We have been fortunate enough to teach, train and facilitate all over the world working with every type of person you could think of. Please have a poke around our sight and email us at [email protected] if you want to find out more (or ask us to do something; especially if it’s weird - we will most likely say yes).
Joe Samuel
Joe has been a Musical Director for theatre and Improvisation for over 15 years and has worked with companies and troupes all over the world. He have been fortunate enough to be the musical director of many European Improv Festivals such as Barcelona, Athens, Amsterdam and many more. He is the Musical Director of The Maydays and conceived and directed their flagship show, Happily Never After that has been performed all around the world. He has taught and played for countless Musical Improv courses in my home town of Brighton, co-written our book, "Sing It" and devised a million exercises, games and performance pieces, some of which are born in our Super Secret Musical Improv sessions that have been running for 10 years.
Heather Urquhart
Heather originally trained in Physical Theatre and then went on to specialise in improvisation at Chicago’s I.O and Annoyance theatres. She and Joe both improvise with The Maydays, whose flagship show, 'Happily Never After' is an improvised show in the style of Tim Burton. She also improvises with the Olivier award winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, Blues Hammer, an improvised blues show with the legendary Joe Bill and London's premier all female improv team 'Yes Queens'. She has headlined numerous improv festivals & toured extensively around the world.
Heather is an artistic director at the Nursery Theatre and has also co-written a book with Joe on the subject of musical improvisation called ‘Sing it!’
Heather was winner of the award for best female performer in the Brighton Fringe & winner of the Argus Angel Award for artistic excellence. She is a vocalist with the mercury music prize nominated Electric Soft Parade and when there is time improvises a concept album with Fred Deakin of Lemon Jelly.
Heather is an artistic director at the Nursery Theatre and has also co-written a book with Joe on the subject of musical improvisation called ‘Sing it!’
Heather was winner of the award for best female performer in the Brighton Fringe & winner of the Argus Angel Award for artistic excellence. She is a vocalist with the mercury music prize nominated Electric Soft Parade and when there is time improvises a concept album with Fred Deakin of Lemon Jelly.
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