I've been throwing out some back copies of music magazines and I saw in one of them that the Musicians Benevolent Fund has a Young Talents award scheme. The MBF also has something called a Funding Wizard, which is database of sources of alternative funding. Just in case anybody doesn't already know about it, the info is here.

Thankyou Skylark, this could be useful to me, I would really like to buy my daughter a better violin, but my finances are laughable..
There may be something here that would help us, maybe even looking towards one of the conservatoire Saturday schools that she'd desperately like to be part of too

Awards for Young Musicians are very good but there closing date is fast approaching. I get the impression that most charities prefer to fund instruments.

Good luck!

Miffy - have a look at www.benslow.org at the instrument loan scheme. A couple of my pupils have Benslow instruments and I have found them to be very understanding to deal with.

I am sure I have mentioned this before but I will write it again. My daughter (Year 13) is a G8 viola player with LSSO and section principle of her school orchestra. She started with a rented viola from Footes and subsequently moved to a loaned viola from Benslow worth between £7K and £10K. There is no way we could have afforded the price of such a quality viola. In fact she actually does not own a viola. She will continue to use this loaned instrument in her Gap year and then return it. As it is not her principle instrument it wont be a wrench to return it, but she has said it made a tremendous difference to her playing over the years. So do please try for a Benslow Instrument, it can be a bit of a wait sometimes but worth it.

I wish i had discovered this when i was still a student! I am just beyond G8 on violin and my bows and violin add up to about £2100, I even had to take up a part time job around school hours to pay for it.

Hope many people benefit from this wonderful service in the future.

Thankyou for the information about Benslow, I had looked about but not come across them.
Just a few questions, I really don't know what value of violin to put down, whether the price I was trying to save up for, or the price that I would look at if I had the money, not extreme, obviously - £10,000 would be lovely!!!!(but greedy )
Also, what sort of things to write about why she needs one - the other problem is I am also her teacher and they want a teacher reference, it would be hard to write it without sounding biase.
Would it be a good idea to get her grade 8 done first? She's been a very good gd8 standard for the last couple of years but we've kind of not got round to it, so many other musical things she keeps getting herself involved in.

Applying for funding, from what I remember, is very time consuming. Initially we were bought a student bassoon (£3500) for my daughter by the Felicity Belfied Trust. It was to be on loan until she was 25, or got another one or stopped lessons. That was on references only. We then gathered around £4000 from trusts for her next bassoon - MBF, EMI sound foundation awards quite a bit, Dennes Gilkes and Graucob for those in the North West. AYM did not give anything at all to us and you never really seem to know why one does and another doesn't.

I was quite touched that individuals were willing to set up trusts to donate money to individual children to buy musical instruments. I know we couldn't have done it without them.

Benslow are generally very helpful and now is probably quite a good time to get an application in as there are likely to be instruments coming back in over the summer. They obviously only have a limited supply and range of instruments but it sounds like your daughter may well be a suitable candidate.

I've always found the 'value' bit rather subjective as it is not always a good indicator of how good a match an instrument is for a player. Ditto the Grade 8 bit - my 'Benslow' pupils got their instruments for Grade 6 and Grade 7 respectively and another player had small instrument on loan between Grade 4 and 6 to tide her over until she was ready for a full size. Give them a ring and discuss your situation fully, my guess is that you are not the first teacher-parent looking for an instrument for a promising child. If she does lots of orchestral playing too then a letter of support from her conductor or string tutor can be useful, but not essential. While you're thinking about an instrument do think about a bow and discuss this with them too.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

When my daughter got the viola from Benslow she was a Grade 6 (merit). Her viola tutor wrote the original application request, however it was her Head of Music at school (a viola player himself) who wrote her reference. I really cant remember writing about value we just wanted a decent viola.

On arrival at Benslow there were three suitable size violas laid out for her to try. She took about two plus hours, of playing again and again - a room is set aside for this purpose. She also called her tutor on the mobile, plus asking me and others there who were willing to listen again and again for their opinions. Eventually she decided which one. She was also loaned a bow. The instrument is insured by Benslow so she is able to travel without worrying. Oh, and there is a small annual fee for the loan (unless you are very low income)

You might not have got an instrument anyway - there is more demand than instruments available. Also, because you have to give the instrument back Benslow always recommend that you save for your own instrument while you are borrowing theirs. You would have probably still have needed to do your part time work for this reason.

In the last year we've done very well for funding though we've not had total success.

I think the various charities have an idea of the the type of things they will fund and it then depends if you fit into their senario.

When applying for funding it's sometimes a good idea to think laterally. It is a matter of really doing your homework and saying the right things on the application form.

Good luck to anyone looking for financial support at the moment.