THE Sue Hooper Charitable Foundation recently held their 2024 annual general meeting and paid tribute to recipients of the fund who, during the past year, benefited from their support.
The Performing Arts Foundation offers grants to promote, develop, and maintain an appreciation and education of the arts and music. It aims to do this by promoting and funding projects, groups and individuals in their dance, music and drama pursuits.
Recent support included help for local dancers to attend auditions and workshops; funds to enable dancers from Moondance Studios in Callington to compete at the World Dance Cup in Prague, Czech Republic representing the UK on June 27; and a grant for the Saltash Arts CIC’s Saltash Songs and Shanties Festival which is in its third year.
The Festival celebrates the music of Cornwall in various locations around the town from June 15 to 24. It received a grant of £400 to offer music workshops to children from Burraton and Bishop Cornish Primary Schools, introducing them to the music and culture from West Africa through singing workshops with Diabel Cissokho.
Saltash Arts CIC director and event organiser Lindsay Endean said, “Support from the Sue Hooper Charitable Foundation has been vital in enabling us to bring the Festival's music to Saltash's primary school children for the first time.
“It is so exciting for young children to experience music and musical instruments that they may not have heard before and to sing in new languages. Diabel Cissokho's workshops will be for many participants a first introduction to a whole fantastic world of global music.”
The idea of a Performing Arts Foundation came from the founder Sue Hooper MBE, former mayor of Saltash and Freeman of the town, in the late 1990s. The registered charity has raised thousands of pounds over the years to donate to young musicians, dramatists and dancers in all the performing arts disciplines within Saltash and Cornwall.
Young beneficiaries have gone on to appear at national venues including the Royal Albert Hall, and the West End, as well as study at top musical colleges, universities and conservatoires.
The trust had also recently supported a former beneficiary, local vocalist and composer Flo Hope. Flo was a guest singer with one of Plymouth’s leading big bands the Carlton Big Band at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth, and sang at the Saltash mayor making ceremony.
Applications for grants, donations or proposals of projects and general enquiries should be sent to the chairman/secretary Sue via email to [email protected] with more information available on the website at www.suehcf.org.uk
The public will be able to watch the Diabel Cissokho Band perform on Saturday, June 22, at Saltash Wesley Methodist Church.