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Wales Millennium Centre, the UK’s final landmark millennium project, will celebrate its opening with a weekend of special events and performances this weekend (26th-28th November 2004). The new international arts centre has been supported by a £31.7 million National Lottery grant from the Millennium Commission. Wales Millennium Centre has transformed the Cardiff Bay waterfront and will provide a world-class venue to see the best in international musicals, opera, ballet and dance. The Centre will also house the Welsh National Opera and six other cultural bodies making it both the home and workplace for seven of Wales's leading cultural bodies and an icon for Welsh arts around the world. The Centre incorporates a 1,900 seater theatre along with a smaller studio theatre and a range of places to eat, drink, relax and watch free entertainment. The inaugural season welcomes a range of companies from Canada’s Cirque Eloize to Australian Ballet. The building itself makes a strong cultural statement for Wales. The design concepts are inspired by the landscape, industrial and cultural heritage of Wales – the layered strata of sea cliffs, the multi-coloured slate of North Wales, the texture and colour of steel and the simple beauty of Welsh hardwoods. Millennium Commissioner The Lord Glentoran CBE DL said, “The opening of Wales Millennium Centre marks an important moment in the history of the Millennium Commission as it sees the completion of our final landmark project. I have watched the progress of the Wales Millennium Centre from concept to completion and I am proud that the Millennium Commission has supported it with National Lottery funds and that this has played a key role in bringing it to fruition.” The Millennium Commission has invested over £2 billion of National Lottery money across the UK, with £132 million going to support projects, people and celebrations across Wales. The Commission has supported a total of 215 millennium projects across the UK, from world class education and entertainment centres such as the Eden Project in Cornwall and the Deep in Hull to hundreds of woodlands, village halls and community projects. A number of other notable arts venues have been supported including the Lowry in Salford, Tate Modern in London and the Forum in Derry. -ends- Notes to Editors
1. The Millennium Commission was set up in 1994 to distribute funds from the National Lottery. Its income from the National Lottery ceased in August 2001 and its work will be complete in 2006. By the end of its life the Millennium Commission will have distributed over £2.2 billion of National Lottery funds.
2. The Millennium Commission is supporting the following programmes:
• Millennium Projects - 215 projects including community spaces, urban regeneration schemes, environmental projects and educational visitor centres on over 3,500 sites across the UK.
• Millennium Awards - 110 Awards Schemes which have distributed Millennium Award grants to over 32,000 individuals for community based projects. The Commission has established the Millennium Awards Trust, a £100 million permanent endowment fund that will ensure Millennium Awards will continue to be made in perpetuity. The fund is administered by the charity UnLtd.
• Millennium Festival - the largest programme of year-long celebrations ever mounted in the UK with 2,000 community festivals, which began on New Year’s Eve 1999 and culminated on New Year’s Eve 2000 with celebrations in 32 towns and cities across the UK.
• Millennium Encore Scheme - enabling more than 80,000 young people across the UK to experience performing arts productions.
• Urban Cultural Programme – a joint fund with Arts Council England for cultural projects in urban areas across the UK.
• The Millennium Experience at Greenwich and the National Programme.
Millennium Commission 25th-November-2004
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