Eight Moray arts, culture and heritage groups awarded share of £91,000
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MORAY arts, culture and heritage groups have received a portion of a £91,000 funding boost.
Moray Council has awarded the money to eight local organisations, who applied for the funding from the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).
The organisations were awarded grants, ranging from £3,320 to £20,000 which aim to boost the arts sector in the area, with most groups planning to use the funding for events, performances and activities throughout the year.
Among the recipients Forres Heritage Trust and Forres Area Community Trust secured the largest grant of £20,000. Other groups to receive funding include: Moray Concert Brass, The Cabrach Trust, Frozen Charlotte Productions, Riff Raff Producing CIC, The Forres Writing Group forWORDS, Speyside Children's Arts Festival, and Moray Arts Development Engagement (M:ADE).
Forres Heritage Trust and Forres Area Community Trust plan to use the funding for a Heritage Quarter, while Moray Concert Brass plans to host the Spirit of Brass Festival in September, aiming to bring top-tier musicians to the region while providing educational workshops for local children.
Frozen Charlotte Productions intend to use their grant to bring "Wee Tales," an interactive and theatrical storytelling performance for young children, to various locations in Moray during the summer holidays.
Alison Burnley, Co-Executive Producer at Riff Raff Producing CIC, said: “Thanks to the UKSPF, we’ve initiated the first stage of a larger project to co-create a large-scale, outdoor community production next year. We’ll bring together local artists and communities to uncover stories, characters and themes for our time and place, write a new folktale, and commission a choral theme.”
Stacey Toner, Creative Director for Moray Arts Development Engagement (M:ADE) said: “We will, in collaboration with WildBird, be building on our work with the Moray Justice Team through arts-based activities. We’ve been grateful to receive support to establish a relationship with the service over the past year, and further support from this fund will allow us to harness our learning and further improve our working approach. Projects that take longer to embed in the community are often seen as high risk from a funding perspective, but the sustained staffing capacity over a significant period has been the key to creating trust and getting this right.”
Speyside Children's Arts Festival and forWORDS are set to use the funding to expand their offerings, while the grant will help the Cabrach Trust to create a project with local artists called Cabrach Lives.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is part of the UK Government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills.
