2007 Education Bursary Winners
The Education Bursary of £20,000 over 2 years, was awarded to five young musicians in 2007 who demonstrated a passion and commitment to their music.
Christopher Orton - awarded £20,000 over 2 years
Instrument - Recorder
Age (at start of bursary) - 26
Christopher Orton is recognised as one of the leading recorder players of the new generation, recently becoming the first British recorder player to win 1st prize in the 2007 Moeck/ SRP International Recorder Soloist Competition. Christopher studied recorder, composition and viola at Birmingham Conservatoire from 1999 – 2004, graduating with a Bmus hons and Solo Diploma with the highest marks awarded in the history of the course.
He currently studies privately with Anneke Boeke. Competition successes include the Gaudeamus Prize and a special prix de Jury at the 9th International Competition of Contemporary Music 'Krystof Penderecki' 2005, and 2nd prize at the same competition in 2006. He was also the first recorder player to be awarded the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians in 2004, the first ever John Hosier Trust Scholarship for postgraduate study, and was the first recorder player to win the Symphony Hall Birmingham Recital Competition, 2004.
Composers from all over Europe have composed for Christopher, and future commissions include works from Thomas Simaku, Edward Gregson and Michal Pawelek. He works frequently in Poland and Hungary, re introducing the recorder to their audiences and musical societies.
Kathryn Rudge - awarded £20,000 over 2 years
Instrument - Voice, mezzo soprano
Age (at start of bursary) - 21
Kathryn is a 21 year old mezzo soprano from Liverpool and in her fourth undergraduate year at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. On entrance to the RNCM Kathryn was the recipient of the Elsie Sykes Fellowship Award and an Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music Undergraduate Scholarship. In March 2007 Kathryn performed for the RNCM in the principal role of Olga in Tchaikovsky’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ and then performed as Cherubino in Mozart’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ in December 2007.
At the age of 17 Kathryn won "Merseyside Young Singer of the Year". She has won numerous awards including the RNCM’s James Martin Oncken and Alexander Young Prizes, and the Joyce Budd Prize at the national "Kathleen Ferrier Young Singer’s Bursary Award." Kathryn was a recipient of a Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe (YMFE) Vocal Scholarship and in 2008 won the RNCM’s prestigious Frederic Cox Award and the national Bruce Millar/Gulliver Prize for young opera singers.
Kathryn has performed as a mezzo soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in the opening festivities at the Royal Festival Hall, London with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Kathryn has also made several guest soloist appearances with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO) and appeared most recently as a soloist with RLPO at the opening of Liverpool Echo Arena in ‘Liverpool the Musical'.
Kathryn is passionate about singing and wishes to pursue a professional career as an opera singer performing in operatic roles and on concert/oratorio platforms. The Education Bursary will assist her in continuing her opera studies at postgraduate level.
Fiona Black - awarded £20,000 over 2 years
Instrument - Piano Accordion
Age (at start of bursary) - 20
Fiona Black is a piano accordion player from Ross-Shire in the Highlands. She started playing through the Fesiean movement and then went on to study at the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music. She is now a third year student at the University of Limerick at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.
With the help of the bursary she is able to go to Cape Breton to study on an exchange for a semester and she will be able to purchase a lighter accordion and a high quality mic to use at gigs.
Her main projects at the moment include playing with the band 'The Outside Track' who she toured with in summer 2007, with another tour planned for summer 2008. The band will also be doing an American tour in the near future and recording a new album.
She is also playing with 'Fianta' and in various duos and new collaborations.
Read Fiona's update
James Sherlock - awarded £20,000 over 2 years
Instrument - Piano and conductor
Age (at start of bursary) - 24
James studied for a music degree at Trinity College Cambridge, graduating in 2006, staying on for a further year to research links between music and autism. Whilst at university he conducted each of the major university orchestras, appearing with several as concerto soloist, and was organ scholar at Trinity. He was also music director of Figaro 2006, an opera project that culminated in an acclaimed run of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, and involved an array of workshops and master classes at schools and universities in Cambridgeshire.
In 2008 he was accepted onto the Live Music Now scheme as a solo pianist, and in 2005 won Gold Medal at the Marcello Galanti International Organ Competition, bringing to an end a 3 year period where he was largely unable to play due to a back injury. His recent disk of chamber music by David Earl received an award for best disk of new music in 2007 from International Piano Magazine.
The BBC Performing Arts Fund has so far generously enabled James to study the piano with Professor Joan Havill, purchase a restored Chappell's grand piano, take part in language courses for future work in opera and song, and begin putting together some professional recording facilities. He plans to further his conducting studies next year both in the UK and abroad.
Mark Simpson - awarded £20,000 over 2 years
Instrument - Clarinet and composer
Age (at start of bursary) - 18
Mark Simpson won the BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year in 2006. He subsequently embarked on a hectic workload, giving concerts and receiving commissions to compose. He started at the Royal College of Music this term but feels this is not the place for him. He now plans to take a year off to concentrate on his composition and then re-apply for Oxford to study music next year.
The Bursary will help him by giving him space to concentrate on his commissions this year.