Project Prima Volta

Project Prima Volta exists to give teenagers the opportunity to find their own voice, through song and in life.

Hawke’s Bay’s Prima Volta Charitable Trust offers kids a positive path to finding purpose and meaning, using music and performance. Project Prima Volta opens up a whole new world of hope, opportunity and shared experience to young people who only have one thing in common – their ability to sing in tune.

Each year 30 teenagers from entirely diverse backgrounds are accepted for a year-long programme of coaching and mentoring culminating in their performance in a fully staged classical opera. Training together for up to eight hours a week, they work alongside international and homegrown industry professionals as well as local performers and volunteers. Their hard work culminates in the unique experience of creating supportive roles in a major opera production, during the Tremains Art Deco Festival.

This year, as a new project, the PPV students also presented their very own opera as part of the Hawkes Bay Arts Festival in October, Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’.

The focus extends from singing and stage performance, to backstage skills required to run a successful production. Along the way, the teenagers develop leadership, respect, trust, problem solving, self-reliance, teamwork, resilience and self-confidence. There is a ripple effect as they find common ground with the adult performers, developing friendships and being part of a collective success.