Opera North tops classical music grants in coronavirus support scheme
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
The opera company has received £2m in the final round of Arts Council England's Cultural Recovery Fund: Grants programme,. Orchestras have fared best overall in the classical music sector
Opera North is the only beneficiary among classical music arts organisations in the latest and final round of the Arts Council England’s Cultural Recovery Fund: Grants. The Leeds-based company received £2 million, and was among just eight organisations to receive funding totalling £18 million in Round 2 of the awards for sums between £1-£3 million, announced on 7 November. The award sits alongside the Round 1 grant from the Recovery Fund of almost £2.4 million given to the Leeds Grand Theatre, where Opera North is based.
The maximum grant of £3m in Round 2 went to the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. Other music grants include almost £1.3 million to the iconic London jazz venue Ronnie Scott’s. Four grants were made to companies in the North of England, while a further four were made to organisations in London and the South East.
In all, 2,013 awards totalling £427 million, out of a potential £500 million, have been announced through the Cultural Recovery Fund: Grants scheme administered by Arts Council England on behalf of DCMS. These grants were targeted at cultural organisations that were financially stable before Covid-19 but were at an imminent risk of failure.
Opera North is the only national opera company to feature in the Cultural Recover Fund: Grants scheme. The overwhelming majority of funds have been awarded to venues and promoters. Wigmore Hall received the highest grant (£1 million) to a venue in the classical music sector in Round 1 of the grants announced in October. Among classical music performing groups, orchestras have fared best overall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (£996,000), the Philharmonia Orchestra (£967,000) and the London Symphony Orchestra (£846,000) receiving the highest awards.
With the closure of the Grants scheme, further financial help from the Cultural Recovery Fund will be announced via the Arts Council’s Cultural Capital Kickstart and Repayable Finance programmes.
Meanwhile, a report commissioned by ACE from the Centre for Economic and Business Research has stated that the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund will help the cultural sector return to pre-Covid levels of growth earlier than expected.
The report predicts that the sector’s Gross Value Added (GVA) will return to its pre-lockdown level of £13.5 billion by 2022, a full year earlier than was anticipated without government intervention. The research also shows the cultural sector is set to be worth £15.2 billion to the UK economy by 2025.