Ellie's Wingate Scholarship begins!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to Ellie's Wingate blog, here to keep you up to date with my progress as a 2010 Wingate Scholar!

In March this year I applied for (and was subsequently chosen for interview/audition for) a Wingate Scholarship. The scholarships are open to people from many walks of life, studying or researching, in all sorts of different fields - sciences, music, arts, zoology, psychology and many other areas.

I applied for funding to follow my desire to study more contemporary music, with some really great international harpists, exploring music written in the last ten years or so and comparing the harp music composed in many different countries and cultures. I also wanted to attend the Eleventh World Harp Congress in Vancouver next year, where one of my all-time idols, Canadian harpist Judy Loman, is giving a masterclass and performing. I really didn't want to miss this opportunity.

To cut a long story short, I was successful and I am indebted to the Wingate Scholarship committee for their belief in me, the financial support, and the honour of being a part of something so exciting. We had a drinks reception in central London last week and I met some other scholars - some really great people. I'm going to get in touch with a couple of them and follow their progress too!

So, 'official' practise (I've done a lot of prep already!) on the new pieces starts tomorrow....I CAN'T WAIT! hence the eager first blog post. Sleep well,

More from me very soon,

Ellie