Fermanagh Choral Society is among the 73 community groups, arts organisations and local authorities in rurally-based communities across Northern Ireland to benefit from the Arts Council’s new Rural Engagement Arts Programme (REAP).

The Rural Engagement Arts Programme, worth £500,000, aims to provide an integrated, cohesive approach to the needs of rural communities as they emerge from the global Covid-19 pandemic. The overarching theme of the programme is to tackle isolation and loneliness, and promote social inclusion and wellbeing through participation in the arts.

The Rural Engagement Arts Programme is one of the Arts Council’s core National Lottery programme areas and to help develop and design the programme the Arts Council consulted with the Rural Deliberative Forum* and the 10 Local Authorities outside of Belfast.

REAP funding has been offered to organisations located in Local Authority Areas across Northern Ireland, with particular focus in some of Northern Ireland’s most rural areas.

In the Fermanagh and Omagh district, Fermanagh Choral Society was offered REAP funding of £10,000.

Fermanagh Choral Society will use their REAP funding to deliver a music project that uses the power of opera and choral singing to enhance the wellbeing of younger and older people in rural Fermanagh. Fermanagh Choral Society will deliver the project in partnership with Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, through their Culture and Wellbeing Service, and also Ulster Touring Opera (UTO). The project will include a workshop series for schools in Fermanagh, as well as a concert for both young and older audiences. The workshops will reflect opera as a fusion of art forms and participants will perform a three minute scene based on a section of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

To target isolation and loneliness, this project will culminate with a concert at the Ardhowen Theatre in Enniskillen. South African baritone Njabulo Madlala and Northern Irish mezzo-soprano Sinéad O’Kelly will perform in the concert, accompanied by Keith McAlister which includes pieces by renowned composers such as Puccini, Verdi and Rossini, and by Northern Irish composers such as Hamilton Harty, Dorothy Park and Enniskillen-born Joan Trimble.