Sting supports Sage

A £1.5m project is set to transform the arches behind The Sage Gateshead into a creative training centre for some of the North East’s most disadvantaged young people. The founding Patron of the new development will be Sting, who grew up on Tyneside. The centre will be home to Sage Gateshead’s Foundation Learning programme which offers 16–18-year-olds the chance to improve develop their social and employability skills alongside an urban music training programme. It is currently based in temporary buildings in the arches, but the purpose-built training centre will offer classroom, production, presentation and rehearsal spaces, including a studio for urban street art projects. Anthony Sargent, General Director, said: “The greater the region’s economic challenges become, the more important is the work we’re doing with these young people… The Arches offer a complementary series of spaces to those within the main building giving the young people a space which is ‘theirs’, something which is crucial to successful working with these young groups.”