Other Partnerships

Aldeburgh Music

World-renowned as an outstanding year-round performance centre, Aldeburgh is also a place where artists at all stages of their career can be inspired and energized. With inspirational scenery, a rich musical heritage and the time and space for musicians and audience to discover, create and explore, Aldeburgh is the place to help artists reach their full potential and define their own musical landscape. Our partnership supports the annual International Academy of String Quartets, part of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme.

Association of British Orchestras

The Healthy Orchestra Charter, launched in 2006, is a joint initiative by the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) and the Musicians Benevolent Fund. We are working together to encourage orchestras to think about how they work and how to prevent many of the physical and psychological problems which affect orchestral musicians before they can cause long term and sometimes irreparable damage. For further information, please visit the dedicated Healthy Orchestra Charter pages.

Awards for Young Musicians

The Musicians Benevolent Fund has joined forces with Awards for Young Musicians (AYM) to support talented young musicians in financial need. Our new partnership will enable AYM to offer special Musicians Benevolent Fund Scholarships to young people aged between 14-18 who are thriving against the odds to achieve exceptional musical standards.

Although the Fund is no longer able to offer its own ‘Young Talent Awards’, by working with AYM we can continue to support those musicians who are most in need of financial support while ensuring that administration costs are kept to a minimum.

The deadline for this year's applications has now passed. Next year's deadline is 15 March. Please visit AYM's website for information about when the next round of applications opens. There is no separate application process for the Musicians Benevolent Fund Scholarships and the awards will be made by AYM’s expert adjudicators. In 2012, £10,000 is available for these scholarships, in addition to AYM’s own awards.

The Fund will look to build an ongoing relationship with the award holders and we will work closely with AYM to ensure that the young people are given appropriate support and opportunities to achieve their musical potential.

Benslow Music Trust

The Benslow Instrument Loan Scheme lends high quality instruments to promising young players and students throughout the UK who are unable to afford or obtain a suitable instrument of their own. Our partnership with the Benslow Music Trust will focus on an identified cohort of exceptional musicians in higher education, particularly at postgraduate level. Our grant will cover the annual loan charges for these individuals to ensure that outstanding young performers are able to make use of the scheme without facing a financial barrier.

British Youth Opera

British Youth Opera was founded in 1987 to provide professional rehearsal and performance opportunities for emerging singers, musicians and technical trainees on the threshold of their careers. Now regarded as one of the country's foremost opera training companies, it works to provide the very best professional development through an annual programme of workshops, masterclasses and fully-staged operas at Sadler's Wells' Peacock Theatre. Our partnership supports the ‘Link Scheme’ which enables BYO principals and understudies to receive coaching and mentoring from distinguished singers who have performed their particular role in major opera houses.

Clonter Opera

Our partnership with Clonter Opera supports the provision of high quality training and performance opportunities for young singers. Clonter’s mission is to 'bridge the gap' between conservatoire and professional work. Each year Clonter Opera auditions hundreds of young singers at music colleges around the UK, and also holds auditions for singers who have recently embarked on professional careers.

Hallé Orchestra

The Fund has enjoyed a partnership with the Hallé Orchestra since 2001, through which we support the Learning and Engagement strand of their work. We provide funding for their String Leadership Scheme and the Professional Experience Scheme for Wind, Brass and Percussion which offer opportunities for students from the Royal Northern College of Music to perform alongside the musicians of the Hallé in rehearsals and concerts at The Bridgewater Hall. We also support the Hallé's Assistant Conductorship Scheme, offering a prestigious professional development opportunity to a young conductor each year.

Live Music Now

We are currently partnering with Live Music Now (LMN) on an initiative which brings live music to elderly musicians. In 2009 we introduced the Ivor Newton Concert Series, an exciting new initiative in collaboration with Live Music Now. The concerts take place in care homes across the UK where our beneficiaries live. So far more than 50 have taken place, bringing joy to both our beneficiaries and their fellow residents.

The Ivor Newton Concert Series is funded by a generous bequest from pianist and accompanist, Ivor Newton (1892-1981). Talented young musicians from a range of genres perform in residential care homes and feedback suggests that residents and young musicians alike mutually benefit.

The scheme which LMN runs includes special training to support and develop the skills of the musicians to ensure that they are inspired and prepared to work with older people. Prior to the introduction of the concerts, LMN said: “We know from our extensive work with older people that live music has the power to improve well-being and lift the atmosphere within a care home, often resulting in a profound effect on both the audience and musicians.”

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Our partnership with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) focuses on the Future Firsts scheme, an annual apprenticeship programme which helps to bridge the transition period between college and the professional platform for up to 16 outstanding young musicians. The musicians are offered tuition and mentoring by LPO principal players, extensive performance experience and a range of other opportunities.

London Sinfonietta

The London Sinfonietta is one of the world’s elite contemporary music ensembles with a reputation built on the virtuosity of its performances and ambitious programming. It is committed to placing new music at the heart of contemporary culture and pushing boundaries. Our partnership focuses on the development of young musicians through the London Sinfonietta Academy, a week-long intensive course giving up to 30 talented young musicians the opportunity to gain experience and receive training in core contemporary repertoire.

London Symphony Orchestra

We have supported the London Symphony Orchestra’s young talent programmes for nearly twenty years. Our partnership currently focuses on the LSO’s professional experience schemes. The LSO String Experience Scheme enables young string players at the start of their professional careers to gain work experience by playing in rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. We are also supporting the LSO Academy which offers up to 30 promising young instrumentalists an intensive week of orchestral repertoire coaching, masterclasses and chamber music tuition led by LSO Principals and special guests.

Manchester Mid-day Concerts Society

The Society's Lunchtime Concert Series, which takes place in the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, offers a high-profile performance platform for emerging artists as well as a number of established performers. We work together with the society to enable the most talented young British artists, which of course includes our own award recipients, to benefit from one of these prestigious performance opportunities.

National Opera Studio

The National Opera Studio (NOS) was established as a link between the music colleges and the main UK opera companies. It provides high-level training for a small number of exceptionally talented singers and repetiteurs, to prepare them for their professional careers in opera. Our partnership will enable the NOS to present performances of operatic excerpts by the trainees.

National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain

The Fund is proud to support the National Youth Orchestra, which provides a fantastic orchestral and learning experience to 170 talented teenagers each year and inspires many more through projects and encounters nationwide. Our funding will provide bursaries to seven of the most financially needy participants, with the aim of reducing any financial barrier to their musical development.

 

Park Lane Group

The Park Lane Group arranges a number of different concert programmes which provides a platform for emerging artists. Our partnership supports the New Year Series at the Purcell Room, a programme of recitals at the Wigmore Hall and a programme of lunchtime concerts at St James’s Piccadilly and St Martin-in-the-Fields.

PRS for Music Foundation

We are pleased to be supporting the New Music 20x12 initiative led by the PRS for Music Foundation. New Music 20x12 is a commissioning programme initiated by Jillian Barker and David Cohen, and delivered by PRS for Music Foundation in partnership with the BBC, The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and Sound and Music. Twenty new works, each lasting 12 minutes, have been commissioned to feature as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. We are supporting ‘HandsFree’, a new piece by composer Anna Meredith to be performed by the National Youth Orchestra.

Serious

Since 2008 we have supported Take Five, an initiative designed to give some of the UK’s most talented emerging creative jazz musicians the opportunity to take ‘time out’ to develop their craft, build their careers and get their music out into the world. Serious developed this scheme in 2004 and have gone on to run six more successful editions, involving some 48 musicians aged under 35. In 2012 we are also supporting Air Time Scotland, a professional development opportunity for Scottish jazz musicians.

Spitalfields Music

Known for its inventive programming and a strong commitment to new music, Spitalfields Music runs two major festivals a year in East London as well as a year-round Learning and Participation programme in Tower Hamlets. Our partnership supports the organisation's Music Animateur Apprentice scheme which aims to equip musicians and composers at the beginning of their career with the skills necessary to lead effective and successful workshops.

Young Classical Artists Trust

The Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) identifies, nurtures and promotes outstanding young classical soloists and chamber ensembles trained in the UK. YCAT artists are selected through a rigorous public audition process. Our partnership is focused on promoting and showcasing YCAT artists, giving them timely public exposure at the start of their professional career.