Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust - Awards

The music goes on...

Registered Charity No. 1094808

Awards - the work of the Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Award for Singers 2008

Helen-Jane Howells, a 27-year-old soprano, has been chosen to receive the Trust’s 2008 award of £1500 for singers. Helen-Jane is due to begin her second year on the Royal College of Music’s postgraduate opera course in September. She trained and worked as a music teacher before committing herself to full-time vocal study at the RCM. She has taken many principal roles with choral societies and opera companies in her native Wales and around the rest of the UK.

An award of £1000 was also made to Nicholas Lester, 27, an Australian baritone. Nicholas, who has been working and studying in the UK for the past five years, including appearances with Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Opera Holland Park and English Touring Opera, embarks on a one-year course at the National Opera Studio in September.

Soprano Meeta Raval, 25, was given £750 to help support her through a second year of the opera course at the Royal Academy of Music.

A special award of £500 was also made to Ruth Jenkins, 21, of Newcastle upon Tyne, who begins a two-year postgraduate vocal studies course at the Royal Academy of Music in September.

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Special Award 2007

A special award of £600 has been made to Nicholas Wright, a talented and rare musician in that he plays a natural trumpet – the original valveless instrument used in the Baroque period. The award is to help him buy a new mouthpiece for his instrument and for further tuition. A student at the Royal Northern College of Music, Nicholas told us: “It sounds like a relatively insignificant accessory but the correct mouthpiece for authentic trumpet is often more important to a player than the actual instrument.”

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Award for Singers 2007

Following auditions in April, the 2007 Simon Fletcher award of £1500 was made to Rhona McKail, a 25-year-old Scottish soprano due to start on the opera course at the Guildhall School of Music in September this year. Rhona has a rich soprano voice and a warm personality and is using the award towards the cost of living and studying in London.

A second award of £1,000 was made to Elias Benito Arranz, a 28-year-old baritone from Barcelona on a postgraduate course at the Royal Academy of Music, and a third award of £750 went to Ronald Nairne, 26, a bass postgraduate of the RAM who from September this year will be on a one-year training programme at the National Opera Studio.

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Award for Singers 2006

The Simon Fletcher Trust award of £1,000 went this year to Hanna Husahr, a 26-year-old Swedish soprano who has graduated as Bachelor of Music (Hons) from the Guildhall School of Music and is continuing her studies privately in London

Two special awards of £500 each were made to Alinka Kozari, 26, a Hungarian soprano now at the National Opera Studio, and to Stuart McDermott, a 26-year-old British tenor studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Award for Singers 2005

Siphiwo Ntshebe, a 21-year-old South African tenor, has been chosen to receive the 2005 Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust’s £1,000 award.

Siphiwo, from Cape Town, is a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music in London

An additional award of £250 has been made to Krzysztof Szumanski, a 29-year-old Polish baritone at the National Opera Studio.

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Award for Singers 2004/5

Mezzo-soprano Renae Martin has been chosen to receive the Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust’s £1,000 award for 2004/5.

The 29-year-old singer from Perth, West Australia, is in her final year at the Sydney Conservatorium before moving to Europe.

Renae is from a musical family. Her brother Bradley is music professor at the University of North Carolina. Her late mother, who coached children’s choirs, had the maiden name Beecham and counted the conductor Sir Thomas among her forbears.

For a fuller story about Renae click here.

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Special Award 2005

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust has made an award of £799 to Failsworth School, Manchester, towards the purchase of computer hardware for use in the music department. Later in 2005, the school went on to achieve its best ever GCSE results, performing particularly well in music, with 83% of candidates achieving grade C or above.

The Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust Award for Singers 2003

The trustees of the Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust are delighted to announce that its first annual award of £1,000 has been made to Viktor Rud, a 23-year-old baritone studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Ukranian-born Viktor, who is taking a postgraduate diploma course and will shortly transfer to the Academy’s two-year opera course, was chosen from more than 50 highly talented applicants from music colleges all over Britain.

A full biography of Viktor can be read here.