Investment management firm Brewin Dolphin is extending its sponsorship portfolio within the arts by sponsoring the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama’s own in-house theatre company.
Brewin Dolphin is investing in The Richard Burton Company for the new academic year 2013/14.
The College’s Richard Burton Company is one of Wales’ most prolific repertory companies, staging fifteen productions each year ranging from classic plays to contemporary drama, new writing and musical theatre, and working with some of the country’s most exciting professional directors. It brings together the College’s undergraduate and postgraduate actors, stage managers, theatre designers and musical theatre performers in their final year of training.
The company has developed a reputation for engaging and captivating productions performed across a range of venues at the College and beyond, and for the first time will present a season of four new plays, commissioned by RWCMD, in London in spring 2014.
The new sponsorship by the Wales office extends Brewin Dolphin’s commitment and association with the world of music and arts which includes sponsorship arrangements with the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff and the Llandeilo Festival of Music.
In 2012, the charity fund management team in Brewin Dolphin was appointed to run the investment portfolio of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama worth £1m. The specialist team manages funds for a number of well-known Welsh charities including Tenovus, St John Cymru Wales and Christ College Brecon.
David Myrddin-Evans, head of Brewin Dolphin Wales, said: “We’re delighted to be supporting The Richard Burton Company for the new academic year. The College has a reputation within the profession for producing highly skilled, confident and versatile performers and practitioners and the Richard Burton Company provides a perfect platform for emerging artists to hone their skills prior to entering the professional industry.
“The sponsorship demonstrates our continued commitment to sponsorship and philanthropy in the world of arts and music in Wales and we look forward to attending a number of the company’s performances throughout the next year.”
The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama was recently ranked as the top Drama training programme in the UK in the Guardian University League tables, and has a proven record of delivering students into leading industry organisations including the Royal Shakespeare Company, The National Theatre, and the Donmar Warehouse, as well as film and screen.
In 2011, when RWCMD opened its £22.5 million facilities, Richard Burton’s daughter, the actress Kate Burton, opened the Richard Burton Theatre and gave her blessing for its resident company to be known as The Richard Burton Company.
Hilary Boulding, Principal of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, said “We are extremely pleased to welcome Brewin Dolphin as our first Richard Burton Company sponsor. Their investment will help to support our emerging actors, stage managers and theatre designers: young artists who hold the key to our cultural future. Having recently announced an increase in audiences for the third year running, we know that our audiences also value what is now one of Wales’s most prolific and successful theatre companies.”