20 Projects to Boost Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Creative Scene

CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)
CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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20 Projects to Boost Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Creative Scene

CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)
CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel, (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Saudi Arabia’s cultural and creative scene is bracing for 20 new projects and initiatives widening its horizons. The Cultural Development Fund had approved the host of initiatives as the first qualified package of projects for launching a new cultural era in the Kingdom.

The Cultural Development Fund’s approval was coupled with it providing SAR76 million to support said projects.

This comes as part of the Fund’s endeavors to enrich the cultural activity in the Kingdom.

Supporting the pioneers of the cultural sector and enabling them to start their businesses and expand their existing initiatives will most definitely enhance the cultural scene in the Kingdom, empower national competencies, and provide an opportunity for more quality and creativity.

CEO of the Saudi Cultural Development Fund Mohammed bin Dayel considered that supporting the first package of cultural projects is one step to be followed by many other steps.

He said that more programs and plans to stimulate the Kingdom’s cultural sector will be announced in the coming period.

For his part, the head of the business sector at the Fund, Majid bin Abdullah Al-Manea, confirmed that the new projects are the first announced batch to receive support from among the group of advanced projects in the first cycle of the program.

He said the projects were selected after meeting all of the Fund’s requirements.

They were chosen for their social, economic, and cultural impact.

According to Al-Manea, all projects will remain subject to performance follow-up mechanisms to ensure the quality of their outputs.

The Fund's establishment came to develop the cultural sector and achieve sustainability by supporting cultural activities and projects, facilitating cultural investment, and enhancing the sector's profitability.

Additionally, enabling those interested in engaging in cultural activities to have an active role in achieving the National Culture Strategy's goals and the Kingdom's Vision 2030.



Volunteers Use Universal Language of Music to Soothe Stressed Shelter Animals

Sarah McDonner, a volunteer for Wild Tunes, which aims to soothe stressed shelter animals with live music, plays the flute at the Denver Animal Shelter, on Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Sarah McDonner, a volunteer for Wild Tunes, which aims to soothe stressed shelter animals with live music, plays the flute at the Denver Animal Shelter, on Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
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Volunteers Use Universal Language of Music to Soothe Stressed Shelter Animals

Sarah McDonner, a volunteer for Wild Tunes, which aims to soothe stressed shelter animals with live music, plays the flute at the Denver Animal Shelter, on Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Sarah McDonner, a volunteer for Wild Tunes, which aims to soothe stressed shelter animals with live music, plays the flute at the Denver Animal Shelter, on Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

It is often said music is the universal language of humanity. Now a 12-year-old Houston boy is putting that to the test among an unlikely audience — man's best friend.

Yuvi Agarwal started playing keyboard when he was 4 and several years ago noticed his playing soothed his family's restless golden doodle, Bozo. He grew curious if it also could help stressed homeless animals.

With help from his parents, who both have backgrounds in marketing, he founded the nonprofit Wild Tunes in 2023 to recruit musicians to play in animal shelters. So far he has enlisted about 100 volunteer musicians and singers of all ages and abilities to perform at nine shelters in Houston, New Jersey and Denver.

“You don’t have to understand the lyrics to enjoy the music. Just enjoy the melody, the harmony and the rhythms. So it transcends linguistic barriers, and even it can just transcend species,” Agarwal said recently after playing hits like The Beatles' “Hey Jude” and Ed Sheeran's “Perfect” on his portable keyboard at the Denver Animal Shelter.

Agarwal, who was playing for an elderly miniature poodle named Pituca — Spanish slang sometimes used to describe a snob — said many of his four-legged listeners, which include cats, become excited when he enters their kennel. But after a few minutes of playing, they calm down. Some even go to sleep.

He remembers a rescue dog named Penelope that refused to come out of her enclosure in Houston to be fed, The Associated Press reported.

“Within a short period of me playing, she went from not even coming out of her kennel to licking me all over my face and nibbling my ears,” Agarwal said.

A few stalls down from where he was jamming on his keyboard at the Denver shelter, volunteer Sarah McDonner played Mozart and Bach on her flute for Max, a 1-year-old stray boxer that tilted his head when she hit the high notes.

“The animals having that human interaction in a positive way, I think, gives them something to look forward to, something that is different throughout their day,” said McDonner, a professional musician who met Argawal in Houston.

She helped bring the program to Colorado after moving to Denver a few months ago. “I think it’s very important to give them something different from what they’re used to in their little tiny cages ... and makes them more adoptable in the long run,” McDonner said.

While the effect of music on humans has been studied extensively, its role in animal behavior remains murky.

Several studies suggest that classical music generally has a calming influence on dogs in stressful environments like kennels, shelters and veterinary clinics.

But some researchers warn there is not enough data to support the claim.

“We always want these really simplistic answers. So we want to say that music calms animals, for example, and I think that it’s much more nuanced than that,” said Lori Kogan, a self-described “dog-person" who chairs the human-animal interaction section of the American Psychological Association. “There’s a lot more research that needs to happen before I think that we can unequivocally say that music is a great thing for animals."

Kogan, a professor and researcher at Colorado State University, has studied for more than two decades how animals and humans get along. Research involving the effect of music on dogs often produces mixed results, she said, because there are so many variables: the setting; the volume, type and tempo of the music and the breed of the dog and its previous exposure to music.

She suggests a case-by-case approach to introducing music to animals.

“If you play music for your pet, and they seem to like it and they appear calmer, then I think we can say that that’s a positive thing, that you’re providing some level of enrichment for that pet. ... I would encourage people to give it a try and to see how their pets respond,” she said.

For Agarwal, his firsthand experience at shelters is undeniable evidence that music helps comfort stressed animals, and he plans to grow Wild Tunes into a nationwide program. The volunteers get something out of it, too, he said.

"You get a really great way to practice your instrument or sing in front of a nonjudgmental audience, which can boost your confidence,” he said.