Help them get started
Your support makes a difference
Making opera ambitious, accessible and exciting for 11–18s across Greater Manchester, removing financial barriers to taking part.
Opera should be for everyone.
Greater Manchester Opera Collective was created with a simple idea: a young person's background or family income shouldn't determine whether they get to experience opera.
I'm Michael, a professional opera singer and vocal educator based in Greater Manchester, and I founded GMOC to give young people the kind of opportunities that can otherwise be difficult — and expensive — to access.
Our projects are completely free for young people aged 11–18. They get to sing, perform, meet other young musicians and work side-by-side with professional opera singers in an environment where it doesn't matter whether they've been having singing lessons for years or have never encountered an opera before.
Our next project: Opera Takeover
On Sunday 22 November, we're taking over Stalybridge Civic Hall for a full day of opera.
We already have 26 young people signed up from across Greater Manchester, and they'll spend the day rehearsing and performing alongside an incredible professional team, including international opera singers Soraya Mafi and Elgan Llŷr Thomas, our GMOC artists and postgraduate singers from the Royal Northern College of Music.
Some will sing opera for the first time. Others are already considering careers in music. Some will step forward and sing solo.
They'll all be part of the same company.
At the end of the day, we'll transform the Civic Hall for an atmospheric, in-the-round performance, bringing our young singers and professional artists together in front of family, friends and the local community.
We've already received vital support
We're incredibly grateful to have already received a £1,500 Tameside Creative Communities Grant towards making Opera Takeover happen.
That generous support has given us the foundation to bring the project to Stalybridge. Now we're asking our community to help us take it the rest of the way.
Keeping the project completely free while giving our young people a genuinely professional experience costs more than our grant alone can cover.
We're raising £500 to help meet the remaining costs of the project, including venue hire, professional lighting, a pianist, insurance, rehearsal costs, travel expenses, food for our artists and team, and professional filming and photography.
We're keeping those costs as low as we can. We're reusing equipment and materials from our previous project, several members of our team are giving their time or working for expenses, and I'm waiving my own fee for directing and conducting the project so that as much money as possible goes directly into making the experience happen.
What we've already achieved
This isn't our first takeover.
Our first project, Stardust, brought more than 30 young people together for four days of completely free opera-making in Oldham. They worked with professional singers, created a performance together and showed us exactly why GMOC needs to exist.
Opera Takeover is the next step.
And we're already planning further opportunities to reach more young people across Greater Manchester.
Every donation makes a difference
£5 helps feed our young artists and team.
£10 helps a singer travel to a rehearsal.
£25 helps pay for our professional pianist.
£50 helps us transform the Civic Hall with professional lighting.
£100 makes a significant contribution towards keeping the entire experience free.
You don't need to fund the whole project to make a difference. Lots of people giving a little is exactly how we can make this work.
Our aim is simple: no participation fee, no audition fee and no financial barrier to taking part.
Just come and sing.
Thank you for helping us give the next generation the chance to discover opera.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 13th November 2026 at 9:37pm