(Avigail Bushakevitz
who has appeared numerous times over the years for Friends of Music in Durban.
Pic courtesy Fyn Arts Hermanus Festival)
Deadline: May 16,
2016
This year’s SAMRO Overseas Scholarships Competition is
looking to unearth fresh, exciting Western art music or jazz instrumentalists
with the potential to compete in the global premier league.
The closing date of May 16, 2016, is fast approaching for
music students and early-career professionals (younger than 32 years old) to apply for one of the country’s most sought-after
postgraduate music study awards.
Every year, rotating on a four-yearly cycle between
composers, singers, keyboard players and instrumentalists, the SAMRO Foundation
awards two scholarships worth R200,000 each – for Western art music and jazz
music, respectively. The grant enables the recipients to enroll for
career-furthering postgraduate studies or master classes at international
institutions.
The previous winners of the instrumentalists round in 2012 -
Avigail Bushakevitz (classical violinist) and Darren English (jazz trumpeter) -
have been making significant waves locally and internationally.
After winning the SAMRO scholarship and carving out a strong
name for herself on the international performance circuit, Germany-based
Bushakevitz was named the 2016 Standard Bank Young Artist for Music – joining
an elite club of past winners. She will perform with the Eastern Cape Philharmonic
Orchestra under the baton of Richard Cock at the popular Gala Concert during
this year’s National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. This Juilliard graduate is
currently a member of the first violin section of the Konzerthausorchester in
Berlin.
English’s star is also firmly on the rise. Now based in
Georgia in the United States, the young jazz trumpeter’s debut album, Imagine Nation, is doing extremely well.
He is the youngest artist to be signed to leading Atlanta jazz label, Hot Shoe
Records. On the website Allaboutjazz.com, music reviewer Dan Bilawsky
gave the album four stars, hailing English as “a bright new voice and a force
to be reckoned with … clearly destined for big things”. Expressing his appreciation for the launch pad that the
SAMRO Foundation gave his career, he penned a special note of appreciation in
his album’s liner notes: “Your support has been the most beneficial and
influential! I am forever grateful.”
This is the pivot around which the SAMRO Foundation’s
Overseas Scholarships Competition revolves; it offers a platform for gifted
rising musicians to achieve their potential and pursue excellence in their
craft.
To be eligible to compete in the 2016 SAMRO Overseas
Scholarships Competition, candidates must be a music student or professional
instrumentalist between the ages of 20 and 32, and a citizen of South Africa,
Botswana, Lesotho or Swaziland.
The competition takes place over three rounds; a preliminary
round (in which a panel of adjudicators select the top candidates from the
applications received), an intermediate round (in which the shortlisted Western
art and jazz music candidates compete) and a final round, which will take the
form of a public concert at Johannesburg’s Linder Auditorium on August 20, 2016,
featuring performances by the top two candidates in each category.
To enter, aspiring candidates must download the regulations
and the application form from the SAMRO Foundation website (www.samrofoundation.org.za).
Applications should be emailed to anriette.chorn@samro.org.za on or before May 16, 2016.
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