The award winning Company, dedicated to changing preconceptions of what opera is and can be, are one of only 3 global nominees.
Music Theatre Wales (MTW) has been nominated by FEDORA, The European Platform supporting innovation in Opera and Dance, for its Education Prize 2025.
At a launch event at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 26 October 2024, the Company’s ground-breaking “Future Directions” programme, run in partnership with Hijinx and now entering its third year, was announced as one of the three nominees for the prize, having been selected from a shortlist of 10 innovative projects from around the World. The nominated projects have been selected due to their redefinition of innovation, harnessing the digital shift, embracing sustainability, and encouraging intercultural and intergenerational dialogue through the performing arts.
If successful, MTW will be awarded a €50,000 prize to further develop the Future Directions programme in 2025-2026, focussing their work in the Butetown and South Cardiff area, developing an additional collaboration with Arts Active Trust, and expanding the parameters of the project to provide Traineeships for past participants as a professional pathway to becoming creative facilitators themselves. You can watch the short video introduction to the project here.
The launch event provided a valuable platform for the nominees to present their projects, engaging directly with jury members, committed partners and potential sponsors and donors, all in the presence of Judith Videcoq, Head of Unit Creative Europe, DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission.
Music Theatre Wales’ Director Michael McCarthy, who attended the launch event, said:
“Future Directions is enabling MTW to develop an inclusive framework for making and sharing opera: the programme forms a key part of our exploration of what opera might become in the future and our commitment to address systemic inequalities and social exclusion within the artform. Future Directions invites learning disabled and neurodiverse young people aged 16 to 25 to come together and form a Young Company to make a digital opera. This is not a programme that helps young people understand what opera is – it is their opportunity to help us discover what it could be. The support of the FEDORA prize would cover just over half of the costs of the project, making a significant contribution and helping us to expand realise the project fully as planned.”
The event also included the launch of a crowdfunding campaign where individuals can select any of the nominated projects and make a donation from just €5 upwards, with a wide selection of rewards. Any funds raised in this way will go direct to the project selected, whether or not it wins the Prize.
You can discover the nominated projects of the FEDORA Prizes on the FEDORA Platform and the Crowdfunding Campaign will be open for donations from Saturday, 26 October 2024 until Wednesday, 15 January 2025. To make a donation to, or learn more about, MTW’s Future Directions programme, visit the crowdfunding campaign page here: