Exeter, Wolverhampton, Truro and Cambridge are to become new home bases for English Touring Opera (ETO) under a regional partnership scheme, made possible by a Paul Hamlyn Foundation grant worth £214,000 over the next three years. The new scheme will see each city turned into a regional hub for ETO, and the company will present all of its new education projects in the four locations, working with local schoolchildren to support their musical ambitions, and developing links with local businesses and arts organisations.
In these cities, ETO &will no longer just turn up and leave after performing in a theatre& The grant was made in recognition of ETOs pioneering commitment to community participation and is largely intended to support the development of new, innovative education work such as ETOs recent devised community opera, A House on the Moon (pictured), in Wolverhampton. Through the new partnerships, regional teams involving marketing, development, education and other organisational functions, will work together to find new ways of bringing opera to local communities.