Students at the JNF UK supported Bikurim Performing Arts School in Eshkol took part in a concert last week to mark another successful term. This mid-year celebration was an opportunity to highlight the students’ work, present it to a large audience while promoting the creative integration of music and visual arts programmes.
As a core part of Bikurim’s professional training, students are engaged year-round in a variety of performance activities. These range from individual ensembles invited to perform at events in the Eshkol region and elsewhere in the country, together with major productions staged by the Village three times a year on campus.
Currently Bikurim is in its third year of operation, delivering on its vision and promise of world-class, professional artistic training for underserved youth from all across Israel. Through the generous partnership with JNF-UK Bikurim is renovating and constructing facilities that provide the environment and equipment for this ambitious project. As resources become available Bikurim is developing the rehearsal, recording and performance spaces around the campus in both the music and visual arts programmes. The centrepiece of this effort is a newly opened Integrated Arts Centre in which a range of training activities, from individual piano instruction for all of our musical students, to ensembles, to small-class instruction and artistic workshops takes place.