National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $80 million in grants as part of the NEA’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2018.  Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $20,000 to the Sarasota Youth Opera program to support its 2018 re-mount of The Little Sweep by Benjamin Britten. The Art Works category is the NEA’s largest funding category and supports projects that focus on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts and/or the strengthening of communities through the arts. Sarasota Youth Opera will present a re-mount of their 2013 production of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Little Sweep. Premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1949, The Little Sweep tells the story of a group of children, with the help of a kind nursery maid, who work to free a young chimney sweep apprentice from his cruel master. In addition, this production will include a special prologue written by Martha Collins, stage director, and Jesse Martins, Youth Opera Music Director, which shows the audience how an opera comes together. This work will be presented on November 3rd and 4th with a school matinee performance on November 5. 

Sarasota Opera