RPS Young Musicians Programme Awards Grants of £81,000 to Young Musicians

The Royal Philharmonic Society, through its Young Musicians Programme, has made a series of grants totaling £81,500 to young composers and performers, underlining the Society's commitment to encouraging and recognizing the next generation of talented young artists. Reflecting the many, and increasing, practical and artistic needs of music students and nascent professionals, the RPS Young Musicians' Programme provides wide- ranging support including: assistance with the purchase of instruments, enabling British instrumentalists to study abroad, support for outstanding young string players and organists, further study opportunity for singers, mentoring by leading classical artists for exceptional musicians at the start of their professional careers and support for young composers through special commissions.

Further details about the Royal Philharmonic Society's work with young musicians and composers, and how you can become involved at www.royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk

Six composers have been selected by a distinguished jury to write new works for performance at prestigious venues in 2014 through the Royal Philharmonic Society's annual Composition Prize for composers aged under 29.

The composers, selected from 86 applicants by the RPS composition prize jury of composers Unsuk Chin, Tansy Davies and conductor Richard Baker, are: Michael Cutting (b.1987), Samantha Fernando (b.1984)and 26 year old Matthew Kaner (who will write for the Philharmonia's Music of Today and join the Philharmonic Orchestra's Young Composers Academy, in partnership with the RPS) and Tom Stewart (b. 1992) who will write a new work for 2014 Cheltenham Festival. All will receive £3000 in prize money. A £1000 RPS commission for a piece for piano and clarinet to be performed at Presteigne Festival 2014 has been awarded to 26 year old Daniel Kidane.

The Royal Philharmonic Society's annual composition prize is supported by the Delius Trust and the RVW Trust, with additional support for the Cheltenham Festival commission from the Susan Bradshaw Composers Fund.

22-year-old Scottish composer, Tom Harrold, will write a new fanfare to be premiered at IAMA Montreal 2013 on 6 November at the Montreal Maison Symphonique and repeated at the opening of the 24th IAMA International Conference on 10 April 2014 in London. The commission is one of a series of RPS 'mini-commissions', intended to provide performance opportunities for student composers at the start of their careers.

Ever since Stephen Hough set off to New York to study at the Juilliard School in 1980, the RPS Julius Isserlis Scholarship has widened the horizons of some of the UK's finest young instrumentalists. Distinguished previous winners also include cellist Caroline Dale, violinist Janice Graham, organist Stephen Disley and flautist

Katherine Bryan. The scholarship, one of the most prestigious scholarships for music students, funds study abroad for musicians of any nationality between the ages of 15 and 24 who are permanently resident in the UK, with awards made biennially.

The 2013 Royal Philharmonic Society Julius Isserlis Scholarship has been awarded to Royal College of Music student, 22-year-old cellist Ariana Kashefi, who will receive £20,000 to enable her to study with Professor Bohorquez at the Hans Eisler Music Academy in Berlin. An award of £10,000 goes to harpist Emily Hoile (the scholarship funded her first two years at New York's Juilliard School, and this additional award will now enable her to complete her degree - the first ever double award by the scholarship).

This year's Isserlis selection panel, chaired by BBC Radio 3 Commissioning and Programme Editor Edward Blakeman, included Leslie East, Chief Executive of ABRSM, Stephen Bryan, leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Kathryn McDowell, Managing Director, London Symphony Orchestra.

Outstanding young string players have been recognised through two special awards as part of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Musicians Programme.

The Wu Quartet is the inaugural winner of the RPS Albert and Eugenie Frost Prize for young string players. Violinist Benjamin Baker has won the longstanding RPS Emily Anderson Prize for young violinists, whose previous winners include Alina Ibragimova. Selected following recent YCAT Trust auditions, the Wu Quartet will receive £5,000 towards professional development, and Benjamin Baker £2,500.

The RPS Albert and Eugenie Frost Prize, specifically for violin, viola or cello players (or in combination as a Trio or Quartet) is a new addition to the Society's burgeoning Young Musicians Programmes.

Royal Philharmonic Society - Helping with the tools of the trade

The Royal Philharmonic Society offers financial assistance to help music students purchase their own instruments while undertaking their professional studies through the RPS Sir John Barbirolli Memorial Foundation and thanks to the support of the Angus Allnatt Trust, Ernest Cook Trust and David and Selina Marks. In a welcome change from the model of student loans, the Society provides one-off non-repayable awards. Payback comes purely in the form of the startling musical progress that can be made on an appropriate, quality instrument.

This year, twenty-one young music students will benefit from grants totaling £30,400 (£7000 more than in 2013). As in previous years, demand for support was exceptionally high - with the fund only able to meet approximately 20% of the total funds requested. Grants for music students from all major conservatoires across the UK, will go towards the purchase of a wide range of instruments, including piccolo, French horn, bassoon, violins, double bass, vibraphone, A clarinet, oboe, alto sax as well as a flute head joint and violin and cello bows.

The Royal Philharmonic Society [RPS] is a charity dedicated to creating a future for music through the encouragement of creativity, the promotion of understanding and the recognition of excellence.

To mark the achievements of distinguished practitioners across the industry the Society presents the annual RPS Music Awards, the UK's leading awards for live music; the Leslie Boosey Award, for those who have made an outstanding contribution to further contemporary music in the UK, often in a 'back stage' capacity - from programmers to publishers; the newly launched Salomon Prize, for orchestral musicians (with the inaugural award recently presented to Hallé double bass player Beatrice Schirmer); Honorary Membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society, for services to music and which has been awarded to composers, conductors, performers, patrons, commentators programmers and educationalists; and the society's highest honour, the RPS Gold Medal. Current recipients of the RPS Gold Medal are: Janet Baker, Bernard Haitink, Alfred Brendel, Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle, Placido Domingo, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Thomas Quasthoff, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Mitsuko Uchida.

The Society's artistic activities focus on composers and young musicians and through a programme of audience development, awards and lectures it seeks to raise the public consciousness of the finest music making today and to create a forum for debate about the direction of classical music.

The RPS is celebrating its bicentenary during 2013. It was formed on 24 January 1813 with the aim 'to promote the performance, in the most perfect manner possible of the best and most approved instrumental music', which it did principally by giving regular public orchestral concerts in London, including through two world wars.