Performing Arts

Perform Europe, the European funding plan for cross-border touring in the performing arts sector, has launched its third Open Call, offering €1.4 million in total to support innovative touring proposals across 41 Creative Europe countries.

RESEO, a European network dedicated to education, participation, and transformation through opera, music, and dance, is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year with a conference titled Making Noise: The Future that We Want.

In my small Portuguese village of Pousos, between the giant waves of Nazaré and the Shrine of Fátima, we had a community band. I joined at age 8, playing flugelhorn. I’m forever grateful for this decision, which launched a life in music. But it wasn’t until years later, when I served as the director of several conservatories, that I began asking why it took so long to get started.

The student-teacher relationship in classical music conservatories is unlike almost any other.

About 15 years ago, when I was on tour in Africa, I was lucky enough to meet the late Bob Collymore, Founder/CEO of Safaricom Kenya and one of the most inspiring people on the planet. I performed at the Safaricom headquarters for all the employees; Bob was immediately enthusiastic about bringing more jazz to Nairobi, and he decided to launch the Safaricom International Jazz Festival. He organized the festival setup, and I helped him with the programming.

U.S. pop singer Sara Bareilles recently gave a short but powerful commencement speech (at the Berklee School of Music) that will inspire all of us in the arts.

The FIFA World Cup is the world’s most watched and celebrated sporting event, and Atlanta, Georgia, will host three of the tournament’s matches this year.

The new documentary El Canto de las Manos goes behind the scenes of a 2022 production of Beethoven’s Fidelio, performed in sign language for the first time in honor of the deaf composer.

Few would disagree that imagining and constructing something good for humanity, in a place where vast harm has been done, is a creative act. Therefore, the completion of The Ensemble House in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina can be seen as one of the world’s great creative triumphs in recent years.

Sirkhane Social Circus is more than just a place to learn circus skills—it is a sanctuary of joy, healing, and creative expression for children who have endured the trauma of war, displacement, and social instability. Based in Mardin, Turkey, near the Syrian border, Sirkhane provides a safe and nurturing environment where children from diverse backgrounds—Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi, and Kurdish—come together to learn, perform, and play.