Creative Scotland has pledged £1 million to Aberdeen Performing Arts over the next three years in the current round of Regular Funding.
APA Chief Executive Jane Spiers said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have secured £1m funding for the second time from Creative Scotland, and look forward to delivering our three-year plan Imagining New Futures, which sets out our ambitions for APA, the city and the North-east, and places arts and culture at the heart of community.”
APA’s three-year plan begins with the opening of a transformed Music Hall which will allow for new and exciting programming as a consequence of upgrades back and front of house, a new studio space and improved access. The funding allows APA to continue the work of its new producing arm, Freshly Squeezed Productions, to develop talent and make and create work in the North-east. It secures a future for its two festivals - True North, recently voted best regional festival by the Aberdeen City and Shire Tourism Awards, and Granite Noir, a Northern Star Business Awards finalist for best marketing campaign.
Jane said: “In the lifetime of our Business Plan we are expecting more than two million people to visit our venues, but for us success is not just about number crunching. The funding we have received from Creative Scotland will help us to enable the arts, culture and creativity to feature in everyone’s lives – as audience members, participants, practitioners and friends, on and off stage. It will mean we can bring the very best work to Aberdeen from Scotland and internationally, help grow cultural tourism in the North-east and contribute to economic renewal.”
The aim of Creative Scotland’s Regular Funding is to provide three-year funding support for a range and breadth of organisations that make a vital contribution to the current health and future development of the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland.