Please note this funding programme is not accepting applications.
You can find which of our funding initiatives are accepting applications on our deadlines page.
Steve Reid InNOVAtion Award
#SteveReidAward
An innovative creative development project, supporting outstanding emerging artists through expert mentorship and vital bursaries.
What this scheme is about:
This partnership between the Steve Reid Foundation and PRS Foundation provides an opportunity for emerging artists that make outstanding music to receive support in the form of:
- a grant of up to £1,500 to assist with creative goals and career development
- mentoring from an experienced, successful working artist (i.e. a trustee or friend of the Steve Reid Foundation)
It is open to anyone that is writing and performing their own music and is currently unsigned and unmanaged.
Steve Reid Foundation trustees and previous mentors include Gilles Peterson, Four Tet, Floating Points, Emanative and Koreless, and the Foundation’s network of industry experts, producers and artists help to select and support artists.
Winners from previous years are:
- Nubya Garcia (internationally acclaimed saxophonist and composer, Jazz FM Award 2019)
- Moses Boyd (2 x MOBO Award winning drummer, composer and producer)
- Nwando Ebizie (aka Lady Vendredi) (Winner, The Oram Award 2019)
- Femi Koleoso (Ezra Collective) (Pioneering chief beatmaker in Ezra Collective, drummer for Jorja Smith)
- Ola Szmidt (Multi-faceted musician, mentored by Four Tet)
- Wu-Lu (South London-based producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist; recent recipient of PRS Foundation’s Open Fund for Music Creators)
- The Little Unsaid (“Entrancing… songwriting of a real rich quality, all held together by an intensity of approach, by a focus on the emotional weight music can carry” Clash)
- Sarathy Korwar (US-born, raised in India, and fusing jazz, folk and electronics, Sarathy’s new album ‘More Arriving’ released in July through Leaf Label)
- Hector Plimmer (Designer, producer and DJ whose new album ‘Next to Nothing’ is released this summer. “It’s the soundtrack to joining a really great cult, that’s somewhere warm and pretty.” Tom Ravenscroft, 6 Music)
Watch Nubya Garcia perform a live track, filmed ahead of our showcase at Total Refreshment Centre in 2017:
About Steve Reid Foundation:
“I started the Steve Reid Foundation as a tribute to a legendary musician, an inspiring human being and a good friend. Steve Reid was a phenomenal jazz drummer from New York, who worked with many of the music greats like Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Sun Ra. His illustrious career was also marked by innovation, experimentation and breaking frontiers, especially through his collaborations with Keiran Hebden (Four Tet).
In 2009, Steve was diagnosed with throat cancer, and it was during one of my visits to New York that I became aware of the extent of his suffering. I was horrified by the conditions he was living in during his last days. He was practically living in near poverty, and he couldn’t afford the medical treatment he needed that might have saved his life. Steve died on 13 April 2010.
Steve is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. Aside from having enormous talent, the most incredible stories and a zest for life, he had a big heart and a generous spirit, and to this day I feel humbled when I remember how modest he was. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Steve Reid’s life than to start a charity to help other musicians in his name. If you love music like I do, please support the people making it.” – Gilles Peterson
Please note this funding programme is not accepting applications.
You can find which of our funding initiatives are accepting applications on our deadlines page.
