Biography

Lisa, from Hawick, graduated from Edinburgh University with a first-class honours degree in music and the final year dissertation prize.

As an experienced player of the French horn, Lisa developed an interest in the 18th century style of natural horn. She helped set up an ensemble at university whose repertoire includes music from the late baroque music era. In 2007, she performed on a classical horn the double horn concertos and orchestral suites by Telemann with the Edinburgh Philomusica and on natural horn Handel’s Water Music with the Edinburgh Symphony Baroque. For these occasions she was able to borrow instruments.

Lisa plans to continue her researches into the evolution of the hand horn technique. As she says, “There is lively debate amongst horn players and scholars as to the correct playing techniques and I am very excited about the prospect of contributing to our understanding of the subject.” Owning her own baroque horn would help Lisa pursue both her academic interest and to contribute to the musical community in Scotland.

How the Award Helped

Biography

Hailing from Moray, Craig was nominated for an Award after he had been accepted to study music at RSAMD in Glasgow. He had been playing on an instrument that had seen better days, yet he had gained a place in the National Youth Orchestra, an exceptional achievement for a brass player who was still at school.

Considered by his tutor to be the most talented brass player to have come out of Moray, Craig won the Senior Solo Instrumental Recital class at the 2004 Moray Music Festival and was awarded an ‘Outstanding Certificate’, which is the highest accolade.

Now in his second year at RSAMD, Craig is principal of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

How the Award Helped

Craig received a Daughter of Dewar Award to buy a professional standard French horn.

Since the Award

Craig writes that since buying a new horn ‘my career as a musician has taken off’ and attributes all his achievements to the new French horn.

Craig joined the successful brass quintet Alba Brass, which became the ensemble in residence for the ‘Young Composer of Dyfed’ competition in Wales. Later the quintet was invited to accompany the First Minister of Scotland to San Francisco to promote Scottish culture.

Craig also joined the newly-formed brass dectet, Phase X, composed of professional and college players, and became part of the wind quintet, Quintet Zambra. Zambra was runner up in the Governors Chamber Competition and winner of the Mary D Adams award for chamber music. The quintet performed the world premiere of John Maxwell Geddes’s wind quintet ‘Quango’.

Craig has played with a number of orchestras, which remains his final ambition, and writes that  having a new French horn has “really transformed my career and has given me the confidence to pursue my dreams.”