La Scala’s decision to appoint the current Saudi Arabian Culture Minister to the board has been described by some board members as “unscrupulous”. The venue’s Chief Executive says the appointment will bring the organisation €15m over the next five years.
The Drum intercultural arts centre in Aston is among the venues Birmingham City Council has sold off as it seeks to address budget cuts and pay for a swathe of redundancies, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in collaboration with BirminghamLive has revealed.
Aberdeen Arts Centre, Peacock Visual Arts and the Look Again and Sound festivals are among those warning that the City Council’s planned budget cuts – which would mean some organisations losing 100% of their funding – are “potentially devastating” to grassroots arts.
The head teacher of a primary school in Basildon, Essex, which has been playing classical music in the school dining room, has dismissed press reports of parents’ objecting to the move, saying it has encouraged pupils to eat their lunch quietly and get out onto the playground.
The families of the three artists have warned of the “dangerous risks this art form brings” and urged others to “keep your creativity alive — but don’t risk your lives”.
A survey commissioned by Slough Borough Council and Arts Council England will gather residents’ views about the future of culture and the arts in the town. It will feed into a new cultural strategy that aims to see Slough ‘recognised as a town of culture in the future’.
The name of the £50,000 prize, which for 18 years has been called the Man Booker Prize after its major sponsor, the Man Group, will not refer to the new sponsor, billionaire Sir Michael Moritz.
Attempts to find out more about the government contract to write a new model music curriculum have been blocked by the Department for Education. Critics of the decision to award it to the ABRSM claim the music exam board has no expertise in classroom teaching.
Voluntary redundancies, early retirement schemes and higher prices for arts and leisure activities are among the measures being considered by Leisure and Culture Dundee after its primary funder, the City Council, agreed to go ahead with £10.3m of budget cuts.
A DCMS inquiry will assess whether arts and education initiatives were more successful than traditional approaches in connecting with a younger generation.
An evaluation of a three-year scheme finds writing programmes should prioritise writing for pleasure, rather than trying to improve technical accuracy.
Creative Access, set up in 2012, has placed hundreds of candidates from under-represented backgrounds with organisations including the National Theatre, Tate and Leeds Playhouse.
The success of members of backstage union BECTU at Edinburgh Playhouse in an annual pay rise dispute with ATG could lead to similar rulings for 11 other theatres, potentially affecting up to 210 staff.
A 12-month study by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland revealed music is one of the most popular curriculum subjects but there is ‘unmet demand’ for music education by more than 100,000 young people across the country.
The University of the Arts London moved from sixth to second place in the QS University World rankings for art and design, while the Royal College of Art retained the crown as the top university in the list for the fifth year running.
The event, which will also involve union Equity and the Old Vic, aims to improve understanding about supporting theatre’s trans community and to forge links between performers and creatives.
