RESEO - European Network for Opera, Music and Dance Education (Belgium)
RESEO is a network for arts education and creative learning with a specific focus on opera, music and dance. Founded in 1996, RESEO brings together organisations and artists from Europe and beyond to promote innovation and equal access to creativity, exchange ideas, and collaborate on shared initiatives, making us a true catalyst for development in the field. RESEO also works with a range of partners to advocate for the value of opera, music and dance education.
Spread across 25 countries in Europe and beyond, RESEO’s seventy-five members pool their respective practices, cultures, values and practices. RESEO welcomes organisations and individuals involved in the opera, dance and music education field, including students and retired practitioners.
Materahub (Italy)
As its name suggests, Materahub is a hub for people and businesses. Based in the Southern Italian city of Matera in the remote and economically-challenged Basilicata region, it supports cultural and creative industries through innovative project pilots, fosters innovation and drives inclusion processes, offering an entrepreneurial approach to contemporary challenges. By providing a space for different areas of international expertise to come together, Materahub helps local communities turn ideas into reality through knowledge sharing, training opportunities, skills development and international cooperation projects.
Materahub believes there is a clear need in terms of digital skills for educators working within the cultural and creative sector, and that participation in Mind the Gap will directly support not only their trainers, but also the beneficiaries they work with. At a time when many education activities have been moved online, there is a need to provide educators not only with technical competences, but also methodologies for engaging learners digitally.
The Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL)
The Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) is one of the largest higher education institutions in Norway with 16 000 students, offering Bachelor and Master studies primarily within education, engineering, health and social sciences.
Cross-border cooperation through networks and international projects are essential to the efforts of HVL to strengthen the links between education, research and business for excellence. By seeking cooperation with high-caliber educational and research institutions, as well as businesses and other key stakeholders on local and international arenas, we aim to be a regional leading knowledge actor, boost expertise in our own academic fields and eventually build up sufficient expertise to achieve full university status. HVL have had success in EU-funds, NRC funds, Ministry of Education and Research funds, UTFORSK, Erasmus +, COAST, NORDPLUS, as well as local private funds.
Garsington Opera (United Kingdom)
Garsington Opera's Learning and Participation Programme aims to enrich people's lives through opera; sharing their passion for art with a wider audience, and help to demystify the genre for those who would not normally have access to it. Garsington provides an ambitious participatory programme that engages with their diverse local community, providing access to Garsington's productions and challenging perceived barriers to cultural engagement. They use opera as a medium to improve emotional wellbeing and to champion the vital benefit of musical engagement.
Garsington Opera already have several innovative digital projects under their belt, including the 360° film Person 181 made in collaboration with the BBC and Dare to Dream, a children’s opera bringing together children from Syria, Uganda, Bangladesh and Buckinghamshire. During lockdown, they offered weekly “Monday Motivation” 20-minute song and movement YouTube workshops fronted by the Garsington Learning and Participation Creative Director, a composer and facilitator and a guest artist, each presenting from their own living rooms.
Les Clés de l’écoute (France)
Les Clés de l’écoute specialises in orchestral performances and digital outreach. The company produces shows for new audiences where music and theatre interact, enabling those less familiar with classical music to discover the repertoire. Performances are complemented by digital applications that enable audiences to continue the adventure.
Their considerable technical expertise and strong dedication to digital outreach make Les Clés de l’écoute a vital part of the Mind the Gap project. The digital experiences they develop are aimed primarily at young adults aged between 16 and 35, a demographic that is less engaged with classical music than older generations. They are therefore ideally situated to input technical expertise and creative ideas for working digitally with communities.
Irish National Opera (Ireland)
As a recently established, but national, opera company, Irish National Opera are committed to maximising public engagement with opera, brokering and sustaining key institutional partnerships and ensuring strong leadership and a sustainable governance structure. They aim to share opera as an arts form with as many people as possible through inspiring live opera events, education programmes and community activities for adults and young people alike.
INO began exploring digital outreach before the start of the 2020 health crisis. INO currently offers several outreach and education activities through digital means, , most notably through ‘Out of the Ordinary’ which sees the company produce the world’s first virtual reality community opera. Since the beginning of the health crisis, they have been exploring new ways to develop a national ecosystem for opera by offering online tools, resources and training.