LONDON.- Arts Council England has made a second round of awards from its £40 million Sustain fund for organisations under pressure as a result of the recession.
The awards announced today are worth around £2.7 million over two years and will help a further 8 arts organisations maintain artistic excellence during the economic downturn.
The successful applicants are music, dance, visual arts and combined arts organisations in London, the South East, the West Midlands and the East Midlands. The awards are:
The Philharmonia Orchestra, London – £760,000
Modern Art Oxford – £630,000
London Symphony Orchestra – £600,000
City of London Festival – £300,000
Birmingham Opera Company – £120,000
Buxton Festival – £100,000
Deda, Derby – £91,742
Project Art Works, Hastings – £89,930
Further details of the awards made and declined are published on the Arts Council England web site.
A total of 120 applications have been received to date and applications requesting £39.5 million are still under consideration. Further awards will be announced in early September. All awards from the Sustain fund are one-off and are made to cover the period 2009 – 2011.
Alan Davey, Chief Executive of Arts Council England said: “The arts in England are funded by a complex mix of public and private investment which usually works well.
“So in addition to benefiting from public money, arts organisations work hard to secure private support and to generate income through things like the box office, catering and shop. That’s a healthy situation, but it is vulnerable when private funding takes a knock as it has done in this recession, and the public sector needs to respond as much as it can.
“We know audiences want to see adventurous art and, in making these Sustain awards, we’re enabling artists throughout the country to go on producing just that, despite tough times.”
Sustain is one of a number of measures Arts Council England is taking to help artists and arts organisations continue to produce exciting and innovative work despite the economic downturn.
