BBT Artist Encore Awards and Community Grants 2025
BBT ANNOUNCES NEW VENTURE
I notice a growing number of musically trained people, including our young musicians, who are very serious about finding ways to share their talent and skills with disadvantaged sectors of the population for whom participation is not so easy – and they recognise the mutual benefits of doing this. I want to do all I can to encourage and support this exchange of music and the joy that sharing it can bring to everybody concerned.
Ilaria Borletti Buitoni
True to her word, BBT’s founder is initiating BBT Artist Encore Awards to complement BBT Community Grants, a programme committed to supporting international charities that bring the joy and healing power of music to troubled lives – to people of all ages who are disadvantaged for various reasons, including low income, disability, displacement, discrimination, trauma and isolation.
Since 2019 BBT Community Grants have become a valuable second strand of funding alongside BBT’s founding mission to support talented young musicians in the early stages of their careers (BBT Artists), which it has been doing for over 20 years. The concept of the Encore projects is to link these two aspects of the Trust’s work; it provides an opportunity for BBT to reconnect with its alumni at a later stage in their careers, by supporting their ambitions and efforts to tackle social issues and inequalities through musical projects in the communities where they live and work.
BBT Chief Executive, Toby Smith comments: “After speaking with a number of BBT Artists already engaged in outreach work and recipients of BBT Community Grants, we know that there is mutual gain and fulfilment to be had. So we then approached more of our alumni interested in this kind of philanthropy and have chosen three pilot projects to support. Our intention is that their success will inspire creative initiatives from more BBT Artists, for which we will seek further financial support to extend BBT funds.”
BBT ARTIST ENCORE AWARDS
Each Encore Award is £15,000.
Viviane Hagner violin (BBT Award 2004)
Krzyżowa-Music for All
Viviane is co-founder and artistic director of Krzyżowa-Music in Poland, an annual festival established in 2015 that provides aspiring young musicians the opportunity to rehearse and perform with internationally acclaimed artists. Situated in a historic village surrounded by the beautiful countryside of Lower Silesia, it has a strong local following while also attracting audiences from further afield. Viviane’s Encore project, Music for All, will launch in summer 2025 bringing concerts to members of the local community who are unable to visit the Festival for reasons of health or economic circumstances. As well as bringing wellbeing, togetherness and enjoyment to those who are struggling or feeling isolated, Music for All will help young musicians to appreciate the mutual benefits of community engagement and social contribution. Krzyżowa-Music will offer them mentorship and opportunity to further discuss ideas and activities that they can take home to their own communities.
Alessio Pianelli cello & composer (BBT Fellowship 2018)
My Music Cares
Alessio’s Encore project in his beloved home city of Trapani, Sicily is intended to educate and encourage young people aged 11 to 18 to not only appreciate and enjoy music, but also respect and care for the environment. In collaboration with the worldwide charity, Plastic Free, which is resolutely committed to raising awareness of environmental issues, Alessio will lead appropriately themed music workshops in five local schools and also compose new work, including a percussion piece using plastic bottles reclaimed from the coastline. The week-long project in May 2026 will culminate in a community beach clean-up with the students and volunteers, followed by a concert nearby featuring children’s choir and solo and ensemble cello performances with Alessio. “The future of our planet is now the responsibility of the younger generation,” comments Alessio. “I believe that the discipline of listening and working together to create music and performance can also inspire them to collaborate and be responsible for other aspects of life and community, including respect and care for the natural world.”
Shai Wosner piano (BBT Award 2005)
Music Mission
Shai’s Encore project will bring music to recent immigrants in a New York church which, in addition to its usual services, operates as a soup kitchen and offers support and an array of community activities. “Our primary goal is to create meaningful moments of solace for people who have been facing economic and physical hardship,” Shai explains. “The project also aims to be an expression of solidarity within the community which, given the current political climate in the United States, seems especially called for.” As a complement to services and communal meals, Shai and his fellow musicians will devise and perform a programme of regular non-public concerts over the course of a year, entirely dedicated to this special audience.
BBT COMMUNITY GRANTS
Several of the music charities funded by BBT Community Grants in the past have indicated that longer term support could further develop the specific projects BBT initially helped to implement. This year BBT is pledging to each of four existing beneficiaries £45,000 over the next three years, enabling them to take their projects even further afield and to more communities who can benefit not only from the sheer pleasure of sharing in music, but also the knowledge that these organisations actively care about their social inclusion and wellbeing.
The Art of Music Foundation Nairobi, Kenya
Ghetto Classics is the Foundation’s flagship programme which began in Korogocho, one of Kenya’s biggest slums, where it continues to bring hope, self-discipline and sense of purpose to hundreds of children whose lives are transformed through learning and performing music together. This new grant will support the further development of Ghetto Classics in Mombasa with the engagement of more tutors (including an online partnership with Bard University in New York State), the acquisition of more instruments, and the establishment of a new hub in the city’s Khadijah neighbourhood.
MitMachMusik Berlin Germany
Building Bridges: Around the World in Music is a series of large ensemble workshop days and vacation courses which will bring together 150 children with refugee status and from low income families with 150 other school children throughout the city with the common purpose of making music together, encouraging curiosity about other cultures, creating friendships and enabling genuine cultural integration.
Fondazione Perugia Musica Classica Italy
The Foundation’s project, An Ever Greater Gift, will increase its outreach work to even more diverse, under-privileged communities, including those beyond the city limits, in small and large scale workshops and concerts. The commitment and leadership of the musicians from the Perugia Chamber Orchestra, along with actors, narrators and singers, is at the heart of the project’s ongoing success in delivering a sense of community and well-being to these marginalised social groups.
Sounds of Change Netherlands
BBT Communities has previously supported the Sounds of Change Academy to set up courses that train musicians and mental health professionals to use music and other creative tools to help relieve and stabilise stress caused by trauma for children and adults. This new grant will support the introduction of Mantra (Music, Art & Trauma), a new course to train trainers so as to further multiply the numbers of facilitators in even more countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Ukraine.