Opera Delaware has appointed a new Director of Education.
Kimberly Doucette says one of her first initiatives will be growing Opera Delaware's popular neighborhood children's choir program.
“We’ll be able to start three new afterschool choirs. We have more programs now that we will be running as of February, but we have a vision of this being a program that runs throughout Wilmington and perhaps throughout the state in the long run,” said Doucette.
[caption id="attachment_70577" align="alignright" width="300"]https://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/opera-delaware-kids.jpg Opera Delaware looks to develop more after school choirs like the one currently at Wilmington's Warner Elementary School.[/caption]
Doucette has led Opera Delaware’s Neighborhood Choir at Warner Elementary School in Wilmington since January 2014.
She says expanding Opera Delaware's connection to children makes sense on many levels.
“Not only to create a singing generation of the future but to be patrons for the opera and for the other live arts because our future really is in our education programs," said Doucette. "They are the community of the future that will support the arts in Delaware.”
Additionally, Opera Delaware is in the process of developing a young artists program which will help collegiate students make the transition to becoming professional singers.
It's been a year of change for Opera Delaware.
In January, the Wilmington based arts company announced it was revamping in response to an 87 percent drop in corporate support. At the time, Opera Delaware's General Director Brendan Cooke said the company had to find new ways to present and promote the art form.
The company pulled the plug on their annual Spring Opera in favor of presenting a series of several scaled down productions.
The strategy proved to be a winning one.
Last month, the company announced that it completed its 2014 fiscal year in the black.
This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.