Manchester Contemporary Youth Opera 2024

Get involved in 2024 by supporting our work with young and emerging artists! We are fundraising to ensure our Collaborative Opera Lab participants have access to high quality professional mentoring as they devise and perform a new opera in ten days. Your support gives singers, composers, instrumentalists, writers, directors, and visual artists a springboard into the profession at the very start of their careers. The Collaborative Opera Lab is a valuable opportunity to develop their creative work in a supportive environment.

Your contribution will make a difference to young and emerging artists making their way into the profession and give them access to high-quality support at a vital stage of their creative and technical development. The finished opera will be professionally filmed and edited for release on YouTube, providing participants with excellent quality portfolio material to further their careers and access new opportunities.

In 2024 our participants have been selected from a strong field by a panel of industry experts. Every participant's place is subsidised, but to make the Lab fully accessible to everyone, we additionally offer fee waivers.

Your funds will be used as follows:

£170 pays for a bursary/fee waiver for a participant who would not normally have access to the opportunity (we are looking for four of these in 2024)

£60 will buy us all lunch (we eat as a company every day)

£250 will buy a day of expert mentoring for the participants

Manchester Contemporary Youth Opera was founded in 2017 by Artistic Directors Richard Strivens and Nina Whiteman. We are grateful to the Henfrey Charitable Trust for funding our core activities since the beginning. This fundraiser enables us to supplement that income, which accounts for 50-60% of our budget for the Collaborative Opera Lab.

Collaborative Opera Lab 2023:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSZZeubQ4zc