Thursday, September 17th, 2009 | News

May 2010 – Open Mic Night programmed for Late Shows at Hoult’s Yard, Newcastle

Our second Open Mic Night was in Newcastle as part of Late Shows – an annual festival of culture in the city where arts venues of all kinds throw their doors open at night. Our performers from Newcastle including the Streetwise Choir, Byker Bridge and Virginia House groups sang all night at the beautiful Clock Tower Cafe in Hoult’s Yard (see right).

May 2010 – Matt Peacock awarded Breakthrough Fund

CEO Matt Peacock has been selected for the Breakthrough Fund run by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The Fund supports cultural entrepreneurs at a critical point in their development. Five individuals have been selected each year for the Fund. For Matt, the Fund will help him further develop Streetwise Opera’s work in film and opera production over the next three years.

For more information see here.

April 2010 – Thanks to our West End stars!

Huge thanks to 42 brave members of the public who learnt and performed scenes from Carmen directed by Keith Warner at the West End’s Fortune Theatre to help raise money for Streetwise Opera. Our sponsored singers were joined by amazing soloists Verena Gunz, Philip Smith and our very own Neil Allen together with 10 Streetwise Opera performers. The evening raised over £20,000 for the charity.

March 2010 – our first CD arrives!

Our first CD has arrived at the office – ‘There’s a Place for us Somewhere’ features 13 tracks from all our centres around the country.

An diverse mix of opera, folk and jazz, the CD includes beautiful solos like ‘Summertime’ sung by Alan from Virginia House in Newcastle, ’The Nottingham Streetwise Song’ composed by all members of the group, the title chorus from Paradise Moscow from our Booth Centre Group in Manchester and ’Skid Row’ from the Streetwise Choir.

Generously produced by Audio Network, the CD is on sale for £10 plus p&p.

To buy the CD, please email office@streetwiseopera.org or call 020 7495 3133.

Jan 2010 – International Exchanges in Japan and Australia

Through a partnership with the British Council, Streetwise Opera is helping to develop the arts and homeless sector in Japan and Australia and presenting My Secret Heart.

We had a great trip to Japan in August 09 working with homeless people in Osaka and Yokohama in collaboration with non-profit organisations Cocoroom and Koto-Lab; we also ran training workshops for artists and were involved in various forums including the Creative Cities Conference in Yokohama.

My Secret Heart was presented at the Yokohama 150-year celebration and at Super deluxe in Tokyo. See a Japanese TV news report here.

We hope to be going to Australia to run a similar project in June/July 2010. For more details on these and other international projects, see ‘International Partnerships’ in the main menu.

27 January – Open Mic Night, London

On 27 January, Streetwise Opera and The Connection at St Martins will host their first Open Mics Night. Streetwise has been working at CSTM since 2002 when the centre was London Connection. Together we quickly developed a weekly programme of 1-2-1 workshops where young people from the centre could spend time with pianist and workshop leader Siobhain O’Higgins working on any song they wanted. These workshops have been extremely successful where we could develop a gradual and long relationship with the performers.

Springing out of these 1-2-1 workshops, Siobhain and the performers give informal gigs in the centre to fellow service users and staff. These occasions have given countless performers the chance to stand-up in a safe environment to perform. The performances have been some of the most moving that Streetwise has organised.

Together with CSTM we wanted to increase the scope of these gigs so that more performers could take the stage and also perform in front of the public if they felt ready. This idea has developed into Open Mic Evenings where our performers from all our London centres can sing solos or in groups to the public in a friendly, informal setting.

An exciting element of the Evenings will be that the public can also sign-up to sing songs ahead of the occasion and rehearse them before the gig. This way, members of the public and Streetwise Opera performers will be united in one voice on one stage.

To come along to this special event, simply email office@streetwiseopera.org

Dec 2009 - Mira Calix wins British Composer Award for My Secret Heart

Mira Calix, the composer who wrote Streetwise Opera’s current work, My Secret Heart has won a British Composer Award.

The award was presented at an event in London hosted by BASCA (The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), the Performing Rights Society and BBC Radio 3. Listen here to a programme about the awards that was broadcast on Radio 3.

The award panel described My Secret Heart as ‘transformational’

Oct 2009 – Standing ovation at Royal Festival Hall

Congratulations to all those involved in Night Under the Stars this year – the annual concert to help support The Passage, one of our partner centres.

This year, a packed Royal Festival Hall was treated to a host of stars from Stephen Fry to the pianist Teo Gheorghiu who performed Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto and then played the introduction to Streetwise Opera who sang ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story.

At the end of the song, the whole audience rose to their feet in an unforgettable standing ovation. The piece was also being filmed by BBC who are running a piece on Streetwise Opera in Christmas week on BBC Breakfast.

Nov 2009 – Streetwise Opera’s first CD

Work has begun on Streetwise Opera’s first CD. All 11 groups that we work with each week together with workshop leaders and other artists have been recording tracks in studios across the country. Over 100 people have been involved in creating the album.

The London recordings, the editing/mastering and production of the CDs is all being managed with the generous help of Audio Network.

The CD will feature music from opera to music theatre and folk and a competition is being run for Streetwise performers to create the artwork for the CD sleeve.

The disc will be available through the Streetwise Opera office before Christmas at £10 plus p+p. Email office@streetwiseopera.org to reserve your copy. It will make an ideal Christmas present and all proceeds go to supporting the charity’s work. This will be Streetwise’s first CD – we hope to use this as a springboard to produce a disc that will be commercially distributed in the future.

Special thanks to Westminster Arts and Audio Network for their help and support with the project. Audio Newtork is the first company to have created a large scale, rights cleared music catalogue in the UK – recording its music using British studios, performers and orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and working with artists such as Dame Evelyn Glennie, Debbie Wiseman MBE, Nik Kershaw and Terry Devine King. The company has over 30,000 tracks on its database and recently opened in New York, Sydney-Australia, Toronto-Canada, Poland and Holland.

Nov 2009 – Streetwise to perform at the Lord Mayor’s Show

Streetwise Opera will be involved in the Lord Mayor’s Show 2009 on 14th November – one of the biggest processions in the UK with over 500,000 people lining the streets of London and millions more tuning into the live BBC broadcast.

Streetwise Opera is one of only 4 charities awarded a grant to present at the 2009 event – we will be performing excerpts from the Marriage of Figaro on a specially-designed (Italian garden!) float.

With costumes generously loaned by English National Opera (see Chris and Vince, right), around 30 Streetwise performers will be involved. The parade is being broadcast live on BBC 1 from 10.45am or you can come to cheer us on (we’ve walked the route and the corner of Cheapside and New Change near St Paul’s underground station is a spot we’d recommend).

Admission FREE!

Oct 2009 – Ministerial tributes for Streetwise Opera

Rt Hon John Healey MP paid tribute to Streetwise Opera at the 2009 Andy Ludlow Awards at the British Library. Speaking about the impact Streetwise Opera has made since winning the 2008 Andy Ludlow Award, Johh Healey said that ‘Streetwise Opera is an inspiration for everyone working in the field’.

In 2007 Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP featured Streetwise Opera founder Matt Peacock in his book ‘Britain’s Everyday Heroes’ in which he wrote about the work of 33 individuals – social entrepreurs, charity workers and community activists. In the book he said that ‘Streetwise Opera is one of the most innovative charities of the decade… turning stigma into celebration’.

Sept 2009 – Streetwise involved in Cultural Olympiad event

Streetwise delivered an open singing workshop at Passport 2 Pimlico – an event jointly organised by Westminster City Council and the Cultural Olympiad. The event celebrated the highest quality arts projects based in Westminster and involved a bus tour around four venues. Admission free; 1pm on 27th September at St Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico.

May 2009 – Streetwise featured in Government Strategy

Streetwise Opera has been featured in DCLG’s new Strategy to End Rough Sleeping ‘No One Left Out’. The new strategy sets out the government’s view that ‘positive activities’ are of central importance to help rough sleepers and homeless people move forward. The strategy also cites Streetwise Opera as an example of best practise in this field.

May 2009 – Streetwise wins RPS Award

On 12 May 2009 at the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards Streetwise Opera was presented with the Audience Development Award which is in partnership with Classic FM. The Award is in recognition of Streetwise Opera’s latest production My Secret Heart which is enjoying a world tour and will be seen by an estimated 80-100,000 people worldwide. www.rpsmusicawards.com

April 2009 – New partnership with Opera North and Booth Centre

We have started a new workshop programme in Manchester at the Booth Centre in artistic partnership with Opera North. This is an exciting three-way partnership where Streetwise Opera is delivering its music programme which is embeded into the programme of the Booth Centre.

Opera North are providing resources such as theatre tickets, performing/workshop space, work placement opportunities, back-stage tours, links to artists. The content of the workshops is designed around the opera season so currently we are working on music and themes from Paradise Moscow.

April 2009 – Streetwise Opera launches new brand identity
Streetwise launched its new brand at a party at The Connection at St Martin’s in April. The new brand identity has been a project masterminded by Frost Design and Macquarie Group.

Dec 2008 – My Secret Heart wows the critics
Streetwise Opera’s new production, My Secret Heart was premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in December 08 to sell-out audiences. The show picked up 4 star reviews in the Guardian and Evening Standard and was the biggest artistic production with homeless people in history. Click here for more information about My Secret Heart.

Oct 2008 – Streetwise wins Andy Ludlow Homelessness Award
Streetwise Opera was awarded the Andy Ludlow Homelessness Award 2008, one of the top awards in the homeless sector. Streetwise is the first arts organisation to win this award. The award for £10,000 was presented to Streetwise Opera by Iain Wright MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State from the Department of Communities and Local Government.

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