National Youth Arts Wales launches Digital Mini Residencies for 2020
National Youth Arts Wales will produce a series of free digital workshops and masterclasses throughout summer 2020, bringing together musicians, dancers and actors from across Wales through Zoom.
The free digital workshops will be offered to nearly 400 young people, who had already auditioned and gained a place in one of NYAW’s national ensembles, but had seen their summer residencies cancelled due to coronavirus.
The workshops currently planned include:
For National Youth Brass Band of Wales, National Youth Orchestra of Wales and National Youth Choir of Wales, each ensemble will have its own 5-day Digital Mini Residency – a week of activities all delivered via Zoom during the period when they were meant to meet and perform together at their summer residencies. Each week of activity will include masterclasses, tuition from expert tutors, wellbeing sessions and social activities.
For National Youth Theatre of Wales, a series of Digital Days throughout August are planned, with acting and writing masterclasses and Q&As from many of NYTW’s successful alumni – alongside social activities such as a digital cabaret from lockdown.
For National Youth Dance Wales, members have already been benefitting from weekly Digital Yoga sessions, and will also benefit from masterclasses later in the summer.
Whilst nothing can replicate a live performance or rehearsal, these free workshops are designed to help young people to continue learning and practicing during such a vital part of their training. NYAW’s training is designed to help bridge the gap between local school and community arts provision and the professional creative sector – and so access to world-class tuition and masterclasses from professionals working in the industry are important parts of these digital workshops.
NYAW members will receive information about signing up to these sessions via email. Details of NYAW’s 2021 plans will be announced in the coming months.
