Awardees - Dewar Awards

Samantha Shields

Samantha has already had a taste of film acting, having played the lead role in the Scottish feature film “Wild Country” alongside Peter Capaldi and Martin Compston.

Sara Barker

Sara Barker has lived in Scotland for over 10 years. At art school, she won the Emy Sachs Award for Female Artists.

Sarah Markey

Sarah is a highly talented, multi-instrumentalist with a passion for playing music. She started playing the flute when she was 8 years old and, later, the harp and penny whistle.

Scott Galbraith

Scott comes from a family of three musical brothers. Currently a student of violin, Scott had been using a violin on loan from the City of Edinburgh Music School where he was a pupil.

Sean Shibe

Sean received a Dewar Arts Award to enable him to buy a professional guitar. He has gone on to become one of the most innovative and celebrated guitarists of his generation.

Sharon Young

Sharon gained a first degree in Eng. Lit. before going on to study acting at RSAMD, where she has impressed with her range, depth and wit.

Shaun started his dance studies at the Dance School of Scotland. Despite no previous training, he made remarkable progress and is now studying at the Elmhurst School of Dance, with links to the renowned Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Shian Blackwood

Shian enjoys playing traditional music but wants to experiment with different electronic effects to bring clàrsach playing into the forefront of modern music.

Sophie Neil

Fife-born Sophie Neil studied drama and theatre arts at Goldsmiths College, London after leaving school. She went on to gain an MA with distinction in Scenography at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Stephanie Irvine

Twelve-year old Stephanie from Gartmore is both a strong singer and extremely talented clàrsach player. She has already recorded a Burns song for ITV’s South Bank Show.

Victoria Armstrong

Before going on to higher education, Victoria was part of the ‘Rainbow Factory’ drama group in Belfast for five years. She moved to Glasgow to study at the RSAMD.

Wui Man (Raymond) Yui

Wui Man (also known as Raymond) is a gifted young pianist, who moved to Aberdeen with his mother in the early 2000’s and was supported in his studies at the Aberdeen City Music School.

Aidan Crosbie

Aidan started playing traditional music at the age of six when he joined Comhaltas, playing banjo, whistle and drums

James Harrison

James has always wanted to work in films, behind the camera as a director of photography.

Alan Benzie

In 2007 Alan won the BBC Scotland Young Jazz Musician of the Year Award and was accepted into Berklee College of Music, Boston. He made history by being given the highest ‘rating’ of any Scot entering Berklee over the past 20 years. Already he is considered to have a future in jazz at the very highest level.

Jen Hadfield

Shetland-based Jen Hadfield has worked as a professional poet since 2002. Her first collection, Almanacs, won first prize in the Society of Authors’ Eric Gregory Awards in 2003. Since her Dewar Award she has gone on to win the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry and the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Prize.

Katri Walker

Visual artist Katri works in a variety of media, including photography, drawing and film and video. Her films are short, direct and, employing tragi-comedy as a tool, she frequently deals with aspects of interpersonal relationships.

Paul Wright

Paul studied at the National Film and Television School with the support of the Dewar Awards, and has since gone on to win numerous awards, including Scottish BAFTAs. He is considered to be one of the finest filmmakers of his generation.

Michael Turner

Glasgow-born Michael started playing the fiddle at the age of four and quickly demonstrated his natural talent and flair for music. At the time of winning the award, Michael was the current under-12 All-Britain Slow Air Champion.

Alana Florence

Aberdeen-based Alana is considered to be a talented artist who is able to take ordinary objects or figures and transform them on paper or fabric into something extraordinary.

Alasdair Beatson

Alasdair is one of the two most talented students his music tutor at RCM has encountered, and his playing is considered to be inspirational.

Alasdair Henderson

Winner of the 2007 Danny Kyle award at Celtic Connections and a member of piping’s ‘boy band’ TNT, Alasdair is one of a handful of hugely talented pipers in Scotland.

Alasdair Spratt

Glasgow-born Alasdair Spratt is a composer and pianist. Alasdair won the Philharmonia Prize for composition in 2004.

Alexa Beattie

Edinburgh-born Alexa Beattie grew up in North Berwick and was a pupil at St Mary’s Music School. She graduated from the School with the Isobel Dunlop Prize for Service and the Leonard Friedman Chamber Music Prize, signalling a bright future for herself as a violist.

Alfredo Caponetto

Alfredo has developed an exciting synthesis of his highly-approachable tonal style and a more experimental music. His work shows the emergence of a true and distinctive compositional talent.

Andrew Cummings

Andrew began to study ballet at the age of eight and quickly showed a natural physical aptitude. He joined the Scottish Ballet Junior Associates programme and later auditioned successfully for the Dance School of Scotland, where he studied for four years.

Ani Batikian

Since her arrival at the RSAMD, Ani has underlined her reputation as a musician of exceptional talent by winning the Hilda Bailey Prize, the Governor’s Prize for Chamber Music and the Mabel Glover String Quartet Prize. Armenian-born Ani has made Scotland her home.

Anna Mary Lynch

Scottish student Anna Mary Lynch is currently studying bassoon at Glasgow’s RSAMD. Already Anna Mary plays regularly in RSAMD symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles and for NYOS, and has the ambition to become an orchestra player.

Calum MacCrimmon

Canada-born Calum comes from a family of legendary pipers and composers from the Isle of Skye. In the fullness of time, Calum will become the 11th hereditary piper to the MacLeods of Dunvegan.

Calum MacLeod

Calum has enjoyed consistent success in the harp competitions of the Edinburgh Competition Music Festival, and in 2007 was awarded the prestigious Harp Medal for a 15-minute recital, the highest award one can win at the Festival.

Caroline Sharp

Caroline Sharp has lived in the North-East of Scotland all her life. She is already recognised as one of Scotland’s foremost young violinists.

Caroline Walker

Since graduating from art college, Caroline has exhibited widely across Scotland, the UK and abroad. In 2006 her work was selected for the highly prestigious John Moore 24 exhibition of painting at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool.

Catriona Price

Born and bred in Orkney, Catriona started out learning traditional Scottish fiddle playing until her teacher persuaded her that classical music was just as ‘cool’. Now she excels in both styles.

Charles Gallagher

Having started out by playing Irish Traditional Music on the fiddle, Charles was given a concertina to try and hasn’t looked back since. After only six months of playing, he came third in the British Championships.

Charlotte Mackechnie

Charlotte began playing the violin at the age of eight and piano when she was ten. She is also a very promising singer. Her first TV appearance was at the age of five when she sang a solo alongside Carol Smillie.

Cheryl Turner

Cheryl is the sixth generation of traditional musicians in her family, an unbroken lineage dating back to the early 1800’s in County Donegal in Ireland. She plays accordion and fiddle, as well as clàrsach, which she started to learn when she was 11.

Christina Corfield

Bristol-born Christina Corfield moved to Glasgow to study art at the Glasgow School of Art. She is now working as a freelance artist and dedicated to her practice as a visual artist.

Christina Knox

Christina is currently studying at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where she is achieving success. In her first and second years at College she won the Hargreaves Fund Prize for coming top of the year.

Christopher Maxwell

From East Kilbride, Chris is focussed on a career in the film industry behind the camera. While still a student, he was sent to the Cannes Film Festival to make a documentary

Christopher Murray

Hailing from Glenrothes, Chris Murray studied film and media at Stirling University. As a student he impressed as one of the best thinkers and practitioners about aspects of film-making, demonstrating real creative potential.

Coline Scobie

Colin won an assisted place at St Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh, where he studies violin, viola and composition. Since the age of ten he has been set on a career in classical music performance.

Craig Creelman

Craig first started studying dance at Anniesland College. His talent quickly shone through when his choreographed piece ‘Three’s a Crowd’ won gold in both the UK Skills Challenge and Craftex UK.

Daniel Hunter

An extremely gifted multi-instrumentalist, Daniel has won several All Scotland titles and has represented Scotland at All Britain and All Ireland competitions through the Comhaltas organisation.

Daniel Short

One of a small band of Scottish jazz guitarists, Daniel is currently resident guitarist with the award-winning Strathclyde Jazz Orchestra.

David Liddell

David Liddell gained a first class honours in digital film and television at Glasgow’s RSAMD. Since then he has won both an RTVSS award and a ‘Best Cinematography’ award at Scottish Students on Screen.

Declan Stark

Thirteen year old Declan, from Airdrie, won the South Lanarkshire outstanding award for music when he was only 11. Declan is passionate about his music and plays both the alto saxophone and piano.

Derek McGhie

Hailing from Lanarkshire, Derek McGhie has worked as an actor for ten years

Donald Grant

Inverness-born Donald Grant was brought up in Lochaber. He learned Gaelic songs from his father and regularly attended Feisean nan Gaidheal. He won numerous prizes at the National Mod and Pan-Celtic festival.

Duncan Lyall

At an early age Duncan demonstrated an enthusiasm for music, starting first with piano lessons at the age of 5, then with the guitar and finally the double bass. He has recorded on almost 30 albums, performed all over Europe and Canada and been a member of some of the leading Scottish traditional groups.

Emma Pratt

Emma Pratt graduated with a first-class honours degree in Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College, Dundee. While at college, Emma received the RSA Sculpture Prize, the Carnegie Travelling Scholarship and, for her degree show, the Farquhar Reid Art Trust Prize.