Last night at London’s Living Room at City Hall we launched The Composers’ Fund programme – a new opportunity established to support the UK’s most talented composers to develop their work in the UK and overseas.
The fund aims to give composers more control of their work, by offering them direct access to funding at pivotal stages in their careers. The fund comprises of £150,000 annually to support composers and enable them to realise projects and ambitions that may not be possible through traditional commissioning models.
The Fund’s launch was marked by a debate and networking event at City Hall featuring panel discussions on the importance of affordable workspace for composers and the key challenges facing composers today. The event was hosted by Munira Mirza, Deputy Mayor of Education and Culture, introduced by Vanessa Reed and chaired by Sara Mohr-Pietsch (BBC Radio 3). Panellists included Graham McKenzie (Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival), Sarah Osborn (freelance music publishing consultant), Tansy Davies (composer), Nick Hartwright (The Mill Co. Project), Jonathan Reekie (Somerset House), Hannah Kendall (composer), Gary Carpenter (composer) and Emily Hall (composer).
The conversations we’ve been having with composers over the past 2 years revealed the need for composers to have more autonomy, better fees and improved conditions to advance their creative practice. Our new Composers Fund is one response to this, providing some of the UK’s most distinctive composers with financial support for anything that might enable them to make the next step in their career. We’re delighted to be running this fund with additional support from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and I look forward to seeing how composers respond to this new opportunity when they apply to our first deadline on 12 April 2016.
The first deadline is Tuesday 12 April 2016.
PRS for Music Foundation gratefully acknowledges Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for supporting The Composers’ Fund.
Read more about the fund and eligibility
Vanessa also blogged on the Huffington Post about what Composers need – You can read it here