Readers of Ella Bella Ballerina will know that the magic begins when Ella Bella’s teacher, Madame Rosa, takes out her Magic Music Box. I was inspired by my antique gramophone (or one of them; I have several).
The idea is that music creates the magic and tells the story, things I truly believe are the case.
And now, for the Ella Bella event at the Edinburgh Book Festival this Sunday, I have been creating a musical box from various bits of broken boxes (some of them musical) and things found at Hitchin market in Hertfordshire.
I feel a little like Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, trying to turn a piece of junk into something beautiful and magical. It has taken me days… and it’s still not quite finished… but here it is so far.
You can see the progress from tatty old wooden box to the rather lavish box which I hope will delight all the children (I imagine they’ll all be girls) at the Festival. It suddenly feels like quite a responsibility!
I’m rather pleased with the result: it will play music from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping beauty, as the ballerina twirls… how? That’s my secret!
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