Funding Impact Update Autumn 2025

Our commitment to widening access to opera continues to grow and 2025 has already been a year of remarkable reach and impact. Glyndebourne’s Learning & Engagement work is set to reach more young people than ever before – from first-time opera audiences to participation in transformative projects. Our mission to create pathways into the art form is being brought to life through performances, workshops, residencies, and large-scale community projects.

Support for Schools

2025 will see the highest number of children attending Glyndebourne’s Performances for Schools since the programme began almost 20 years ago. We’ve sold 5,812 tickets to 147 school & education groups this year. All four performances in the 2025 Autumn Season (up from two in 2024) have sold out: three performances of The Railway Children and one performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Our Travel Grant scheme has also been in high demand helping ensure access for state schools with large numbers of students eligible for Free School Meals.

Our Singing Schools Network project has co-creation at its heart with composer Howard Moody working with students to create a response to Handel’s Messiah. The project involves six state schools (primary, secondary, and SEN) with 24 in-school workshops before final performances in December – Hastings (Christ’s Church, St. Leonard’s) and Crawley (Worth Abbey) – where children perform alongside the Glyndebourne Chorus and Glyndebourne Sinfonia. 

The One Voice Festival is a mass-participation singing project, delivered in partnership with Create Music* and local venues. This year, the festival includes 81 schools, over 2,300 children and concerts at Glyndebourne, Brighton Dome, and De La Warr Pavilion. Children will have the opportunity to perform on our stage alongside the Glyndebourne Chorus. A launch event took place at Glyndebourne in July with 31 teachers from participating schools attending.

*Create Music is part of Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival and the Hub Lead Organisation for the Sussex Music Hub.

Photograph by Pablo Strong

Glyndebourne Youth Opera (GYO)

23 workshops have been delivered so far this year for children and young people aged 9-19, including mainstage auditions for La bohème, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Falstaff, pop-up workshops with Culture Shift (as part of the Holidays Activities and Food programme), outreach workshops with Scouts UK aimed at engaging more boys in singing, plus open workshops for all.

We co-commissioned, with Saffron Hall Trust, a new community opera by Jonathan Dove entitled Uprising, which premiered on our mainstage in 2025 and saw the largest community chorus in Glyndebourne’s history. 51 Glyndebourne Youth Opera (GYO) participants aged 14-20 performed as part of the youth chorus and 17 young musicians were part of the youth orchestra. 

‘This experience offered me another outlook on life, I met some of the most lovely, amazingly talented people!! […] I’ve grown so much, as a person[…] Glyndebourne is such a magical place.’

– GYO participant

GYO participants can also audition for mainstage Festival and Autumn Season productions; notably, all child performers in La bohème this year are from GYO. 2025 also marks the first time GYO singers have performed in the iconic Peter Hall production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, further demonstrating the success of the programme. Upcoming GYO highlights include taster workshops for Tosca (Festival 2026) and Christmas concerts at Glyndebourne, featuring 35 GYO singers. 

Photography by Richard Hubert Smith

National Vocal Talent

The Glyndebourne Academy, established in 2012, is a national programme for 18–26 year olds who show vocal promise but face personal, geographical or financial barriers. This year 78 applicants applied, 44 were auditioned in Liverpool, Bristol and London, and nine selected for the final programme. Led by vocal talent consultant Mary King, participants have benefitted from expert mentorship, including a residential week (10–16 August). The final weekend takes place at Glyndebourne (3–5 October). This autumn one of the Academy alumni, Darwin Prakash (2015 cohort), will perform as a principal singer in Glyndebourne’s La bohème.

Our 14-19 Vocal Talent Development initiative introduces opera to young singers who are already engaged with music but not opera, targeting those who are currently underrepresented and otherwise may not have the opportunity to engage with our art form. Workshops have been scheduled with different groups: RLPO Youth Choir, Bromley Boy Singers and Hallé Youth Choirs. Selected participants are invited to a three-day residential at Glyndebourne (25–27 October) where activities include backstage tours and talks, coaching sessions, observing rehearsals, attending performances, plus Q&As with professional opera singers. 

Future Artists

We have continued to deliver outstanding opportunities for professional emerging talent. 11 young musicians join the Glyndebourne Sinfonia this autumn as part of the Pit Perfect development scheme. We received over 100 applications and auditioned 62 players for these 11 places, equalling the 2019 record number of players selected in one season. We have now supported a total of 74 players since 2018 in all sections of the orchestra.

Four mentees were selected to take part in the Pegasus Mentoring scheme this year. The scheme provides opportunities for singers from global majority heritage. A core week of activity took place at Glyndebourne at the end of July. In addition to a wide range of activities, we added a group coaching session. This autumn the mentees will take part in individual coaching sessions and will audition for the 2026 Festival chorus.

Glyndebourne’s Jerwood Young Artist programme provides professional development opportunities to emerging soloists from the Glyndebourne Chorus: roles in our productions, or understudies, alongside a programme of coaching. The 2025 singers were soprano Mariana Fernandes, mezzo-soprano Rachel Roper, tenor Matthew McKinney, baritone Charles Cunliffe, and bass Daniel Vening.

Lucy Armstrong and Alex Ho are part of Glyndebourne’s Balancing the Score programme, which supports composers from backgrounds currently underrepresented in the world of operatic composition. Following three years immersing themselves at Glyndebourne, attending rehearsals and performances and taking advantage of a variety of development opportunities, they are now both involved in new commissions with Glyndebourne. More news to follow…

Join us for our 2025 Autumn Season where many emerging professional artists and young people from our development schemes will be showcasing their talents.

Glyndebourne’s Learning & Engagement programme is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.