Previous winners

Twenty-seven years supporting top jazz talent

Since 1990, the Peter Whittingham Award has helped to launch the careers of many of the UK's top jazz musicians and groups.

In its early years, the award was open to musicians at all career stages, but more recently the focus has shifted to help only emerging artists - providing support at a crucial time in an artist's development.

In addition to the main award, Help Musicians has frequently been able to offer additional Development Awards at the recommendation of our expert panels, and many of these artists have also gone on to experience huge success.

List of winners

1990 James Nye

1991 Saxtet

1992 Scott Stroman

1993 Andrea Vicari

1994 Steve Plews

1995 Errollyn Wallen (Development Award: Peter Fairclough)

1996 Chris Batchelor (Development Award: Michael Garrick, Adam Glasser, Alyn Shipton)

1997 Graham Collier and Mark Lockheart

1998 Martin Speake (Development Award: Cathy Tozer, Andy Scott)

1999 Tim Whitehead (Development Award: Veryan Weston)

2000 Paul Bartholomew and Dave O'Higgins

2001 Tom Arthurs

2002 Paul Towndrow

2003 Soweto Kinch (Development Award: Andrew Morgan)

2004 6Pac (Development Award: Gwilym Simcock)

2005 Led Bib (Development Award: Andy Davies, Chris Map, John Barwood)

2006 David O'Brien (Development Award: Matt Calvert, Sebastien Pipe)

2007 Empirical (Development Award: Trish Clowes)

2008 John Randall (Development Award: Mark McKnight)

2009 No award (Development Award: John Cervantes, Timothy Evans)

2010 World Service Project (Development Award: Peter Edward, Joe Wright)

2011 Roller Trio (Development Award: Chaos Collective; Special Commendation: Ayanna Witter-Johnson)

2012 Reuben Fowler (Development Award: Ollie Howell)

2013 Phil Meadows (Development Award: Elliott Galvin)

2014 Stretch Trio (Development Award: Mark Pringle)

2015 Square One and Patchwork Jazz Orchestra (Development Award: JJ Wheeler, Big Bad Wolf)

2016 Fergus McCreadie (Development Award: David Ferris)

2017 Helena Kay (KIM Trio) (Development Awards: Olly Chalk, Tetes de Pois and Archipelago)

2018 Alex Hitchcock (Development Awards: Tom Smith, Sheila Maurice-Grey)

2019 Skeltr (Development Awards: Emma Johnson and Matt Carmichael)