26 March 2009
Dewar Arts Awards Continue to Support Emerging Talent
The latest Dewar Arts Awards will continue to enable more Scottish talent to thrive and work in their chosen fields. The awards cover a wide range of the arts, including film makers, visual artists, dancers, actors, photographers, textile designers, writers, composers, conductors and contemporary jewelers. Since their inauguration, more than £2million pounds have been dispersed to help over 250 young people in Scotland with outstanding talent but lack the money to turn their potential into reality.
In this round of the awards, dance and theatre performance play a strong role. Rutherglen born Jon Savage started his training at the Dance School of Scotland in Glasgow and thanks to his award will study at the Royal Ballet School in London. Jack Henry, Glasgow, whose dream is to join Scottish Ballet, who also trained at the Dance School of Scotland,has gone on to study dance at Elmhurst School for Dance. Andrew Cummings, also from Glasgow, continues to be supported for a second year at Elmhurst. Jamie Keen from Irvine and John Burlington from Motherwell will complete their studies in dance and musical theatre performance at Bird College. Samantha Shields, who has already played the lead in a film opposite Peter Capaldi, and Sharon Young, both from Glasgow, will be pursuing postgraduate studies in different aspects of theatre at RSAMD.
Music is always high on the list of awards. This time Jack Fawcett, Inverurie, who is a member of several youth orchestras but whose ambition is to become a solo percussionist and will be studying percussion at RCM, London, and Wui Man (Raymond) Yui from Aberdeen will be boarding at Aberdeen Music School to give him constant access to practice piano. Robert Anderson, Glasgow, who founded and performs with the Alba String Quartet will be going to Bremen for two years to pursue a Masters in Music Performance at the Hochschule fuer Kuenste and will study with the internationally-acclaimed cellist Alexander Baillie. Emma Durkan from Saltcoats continues to be supported as she studies violin at RSAMD’s Youthworks.
Three students will be continuing their studies at NFTVS, Beaconsfield. David Liddell, Dalkeith, tocomplete a Masters in Cinematography, Scottish BAFTA nominated Paul Wright, Fife, to complete a Masters in Directing Fiction and Sophie Neil, St Andrews, to completean MA in Production Design for Screen. In addition, Ben McNeill, Stirling, received an award to attend a short course on aspects of film-making.
In the world of design andvisual art Alana Florence, Inverurie, who worked for Alexander McQueen during her vacation, will be continuing her studies for an MA in Textile Futures at Central St Martins, London and Niall Macdonald, originally from the Outer Hebrides, will be creating a body of work for a solo exhibition later this year at the increasingly renowned Glasgow gallery, Washington Garcia.
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