ABOUT THE CATEGORY: Recognises young people or a group of young people who have made an outstanding impact on the local arts and culture community, who have excelled in their creativity and artistic talent through dance, drama or visual arts. From filmmaking to fashion design, pottery to poetry or even puppetry, young people can win the Arts and Culture Award through any art, craft or cultural activity. The award embraces traditional and emerging art forms, as well as support roles in lighting, sound, marketing and more.
If you know a young person or a group who you think deserves to be recognised for their contribution to art and culture in Sunderland complete a nomination form here by Friday 31st January 2025.
In previous years the Arts and Culture Award included music - this year, we have a brand new Music Award dedicated purely to musicians in the city, but below you can read all about our previous 2024 Arts and Culture Award winners.
Highly Commended: Anastasiia Vasylchuk
Anastasiia and her family relocated to the area shortly after the outbreak of Russian invasion into Ukraine. Nastiia as she is also known, worked hard alongside her older sister Yuliia, to improve her English and settled in well to Gillas Lane School.
After only a week into the new school Nastiia asked if there was a piano she could play. There was, but it was this dusty, old, disused and unloved instrument. She sat at the piano and played. Time simply stopped still when this gifted pianist took to the keys. Members of staff and children came out of their classrooms to see where the music they could hear was coming from. Now with the donation of a baby grand piano, Nastiia continues to impress everyone with her talent.
Winner: Caleb Adams
For Thornhill Student Caleb, music is his passion. He's a singer, drummer, self-taught guitarist and he's pitch perfect - a skill that only one in ten thousand people have. He can detect with perfect accuracy any note played, even if four different notes are played at the same time.
He is a member of the Young Musician's Project, which is a group who bring young people together to start playing and writing songs together. The group also supports the development of confidence, wellbeing and the development of their musical skills.
Caleb came to the group struggling with neurodiversity and struggling to find a place with like-minded people, and he has grown to become a central group member.
