Garfield Weston Foundation
2007 Annual Report and Accounts
Arts – £5,282,100 in 163 grants

In the Arts category the Trustees have added to earlier support of the Royal Shakespeare Company by contributing a further £1,500,000 to a major transformation of the Stratford facilities. The main theatre will be reconfigured with a thrust stage, resembling the Renaissance courtyard theatres of Shakespeare’s time. In addition, new terraces and open balconies will replace the current severe exterior walls, interactive education and exhibition spaces will be created together with a new foyer to link the audiences of the main theatre with the Swan Theatre and a new open public performance area will utilise the green spaces as originally intended. Backstage facilities will be greatly enhanced and a new rooftop restaurant will provide diners with panoramic views over Warwickshire.

Three grants of £250,000 have been awarded. Between 1998 and 2000 the Trustees helped with a major capital redevelopment of the premises of The Place Contemporary Dance, resulting in nine state-of-the-art studios, a 300-seat theatre, a body-conditioning room, library and study areas, café and theatre bar. Due to the recognised challenges of raising sufficient funding, the final two studios on the top level were left as an empty shell, with the intention of completing the project at a later stage. In order that The Place can develop new strands of work that will be hampered if additional space is not provided, the Trustees have now agreed to help complete the additional studios, which will create approximately 7,250 additional studio hours each year.

Following regular funding over the years for its artistic programme, a capital grant has now been provided to Aldeburgh Music. An appeal has been launched to expand their artist development work to include opportunities for professional and established musicians to recharge, create and collaborate. There are currently few facilities in the UK for nurturing established talent and they need to expand workshop space for larger experimental work and work with new technology. They have seized the opportunity to acquire the freehold of Snape Maltings Concert Hall, together with currently redundant maltings buildings, which will be converted to create a combination of residential, artistic and retail facilities, including a heritage centre. The outcome will be a new creative campus, with studios and rehearsal spaces and more involvement with the local community.

The third grant of £250,000 is to Glasgow School of Art. With a total of 1,600 students, the School is spread across nine sites, one being the Grade A listed, purpose-designed Rennie Mackintosh building. This not only houses the art students but is an international visitor attraction. Students provide guided tours but there are currently no proper facilities, visitors have to ask students in the crowded entrance area how to embark on a tour and tickets are obtained from the modest shop area. More significantly, the building and its collections are in need of protection and conservation. Their £8.4 million project aims to provide a new reception and interpretation area for visitors in their building opposite, from which the exterior of the Mackintosh building will also be able to be viewed (this is largely lost to today’s visitors). In addition the Mackintosh building and its contents will be restored, reinstating original features and opening up additional rooms to the public. A new museum will be created to house the collection of furniture and other exhibits.

Once again, regional theatres and galleries benefit with capital grants of various amounts. Norwich Theatre Royal, the Theatre Royal in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the Grand Opera House in Belfast, Holbourne Museum of Art in Bath and the Art House in Wakefield all receive £100,000 towards improvements to their premises. The New Victoria Theatre in Newcastle under Lyme, Salisbury Playhouse, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Trust in Guildford, the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds, Live Theatre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Bluecoat Arts Centre in Liverpool are each awarded a grant of £50,000 for upgrades to their facilities. Firstsite in Colchester also gets £50,000 towards the creation of a major new focus for contemporary visual art in the east of England. In and around London beneficiaries include the Topolski Memoir, the South London Gallery, Circus Space, Bexley Heritage Trust, the Wallace Collection, Blackheath Conservatoire and the Theatre Royal in Stratford East.

£100,000 is pledged to London International Festival of Theatre (Lift) for its innovative New Parliament initiative. The Festival is already recognised as one of the most adventurous and influential producers of international contemporary theatre in Europe, which aims to engage and involve new audiences. The Lift New Parliament is a new concept in performance space where artists from around the world and the people of London will be able to gather together to share stories, exchange knowledge and imagine and rehearse new futures. It will consist of a transportable structure with a programme of events and activities curated by an international team of artists and producers. It will initially open in Stratford, East London, and subsequently transfer to the South Bank Centre.

Education in the arts and programme work also feature. For example, the Royal Northern College of Music receives £100,000 towards the development of a new centre for young musicians in order to expand its nurturing of emerging talent. A similar amount is allocated to English National Opera for its Learning and Participation programme, aimed at making opera accessible to a broad audience, including adults, families and schools. Music for Youth receives £60,000 to help with the continuation of its national festival of music for youth, offering the opportunity for youngsters to perform music before live audiences and culminating in the Schools’ Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. This reaches a total of 42,000 young people in the regional stages. £50,000 of revenue funding is provided to the Unicorn Theatre for Children on London’s South Bank for help with their subsidised ticket scheme and education work.