(Press release)
“it
isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts” Ella
Fitzgerald
In December
2015 Ronnie Scott’s jazz club launched The Ronnie Scott’s
Charitable Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the
support of jazz education programmes both in the UK and overseas. The
charity aims to ensure that music education is accessible to every child and young
person, especially those who are under-privileged, by raising and distributing
funds and gifting musical instruments to organisations that create or develop
youth jazz programmes. In its first year, The Foundation has successfully
raised funds far exceeding its target and has supported eleven
projects that have helped to inspire a new generation of young people to become
the next generation of musicians. It is now actively encouraging grant applications from organisations that further
its aims.
The Ronnie
Scott’s Foundation has awarded grants to projects that include
London-based Young & Gifted, The York Music
Service, the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association and NYJO who
between them have provided dozens of young musicians, tutors, rehearsal space
and the chance to collaborate through music workshops. In
June, jazz musician and educator Pete Letanka will introduce
jazz to a group of 7-11 yr olds from the Soho Parish School with the help of
internationally famed drummer, Billy Cobham. It supports In Place
of War, an organisation dedicated to
empowering the world’s creative communities in places of conflict and
revolution with cultural skills training and exchanges – the Foundation will shortly
be sending them a mixing desk for a small space with little equipment in a
Soweto township that is developing a thriving jazz community. The Foundation also runs its own in-house
programmes. The monthly Big Band In A Day invites young musicians from all over
the UK to learn, in just one day, some of the core skills of big band
performance culminating in a live performance on the Ronnie Scott’s stage,
while its Music Instrument Amnesty collects unused instruments and donates
them to school-aged children in the UK and overseas.
The Ronnie
Scott’s Foundation raises funds through a variety of mechanisms – voluntary
contributions from its patrons, profits from the sale of its popular cocktail,
‘The Champagne Socialist’ and an annual charity fund raiser event.
“We are very grateful to
the Ronnie Scott’s Charitable Foundation for supporting our project. We
received multiple emails expressing gratitude for organizing something free of
charge in a situation where schools are facing cuts on arts education leaving
children with fewer chances to have music lessons or perform in public” Young &
Gifted.
To apply for a Ronnie Scott’s Foundation Grant contact:
Fatine
Boumaaz, RSCF Projects Manager
For more
information on The Foundation: http://foundation.ronniescotts.co.uk
Ronnie Scott’s
47 Frith St,
London, W1D 4HT
Box office 020 7439 0747
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