2024 Rotterdam Philharmonic Commission of Dutch composer Carlijn Metsellar

We are pleased to announce the boards decision to fund the commission of a new 10 minute orchestral work by the young Dutch composer Carlijn Metselaar to be performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic in May 2025. Carlijn Metselaar (1989) is a Dutch composer living in Edinburgh. She wrote The Muscle That Raises The Wing for Concertgebouworkest Young, performed in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Konzerthaus Berlin in August ’23. Her orchestral fanfare Vorfreude was composed to celebrate the inaugural concert of Andrés Orozco-Estrada as the new music director of the Wiener Symphoniker. She has written for BBC Composition Wales, Uproar: Wales New Music Ensemble, Ty Cerdd’s CoDI Scheme with Berkeley Ensemble, LPO Junior Artists, and the LPO Young Composers Scheme mentored by James MacMillan. She participated in the RSNO Composers Hub:2019, with the piece Into The Living Mountain selected for performance in February ’22.

In June 2022 support was given to the Leerorkest as they set up new children's orchestra in Bonaire

We are delighted to continue our support of the Leerorkest. Children receive music lessons so that they become proficient on an instrument. At the same time, the children also develop socially. The Leerorkest has previously established itself on Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, and soon it will also be available on Saba and St. Eustachius.

After a delightful meeting with Marco de Souza at the Leerorkest, we agreed to fund the purchase of 11 new instruments for the children’s orchestra in Bonaire.

Help us continue to sponsor young Iraqi, Kurdish, and Syrian musicians.

We walk into a heated room, flip a switch and the world lights up. What if one day we woke up in the cold, in the mud, in a tent all our personal possessions gone, and we had to start over from scratch not knowing when or where we would have our next meal? How would we gather the strength and courage to remake our lives? The young people we support have faced these obstacles. They have survived and live in hope that one day their lives will be better, maybe like it used to be. In cold, dark forbidding places, they find warm solace in their music. Often the music they play is barely audible so that disapproving neighbors will not report them. They practice on dilapidated instruments found in the rubble. They cling to their love of music and the solace it brings to their frightened, battered souls. Help us to find, encourage and support the idealism of these young composers, conductors and musicians who embody the best in a terror-filled and chaotic world.

Composition workshop for young people in Iraq aborted in August 2014. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Militants (Isil) occupation led to our ongoing concern for safety issues

Formed in 2009 by pianist Zuhal Sultan, the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq is now made up of young musicians from across Iraq. Conductor Paul MacAlindin proposed that our foundation sponsor an intensive composition workshop in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq in August 2014. After months of planning and securing workshop leaders and purchasing flights, due to the ongoing crisis and the threat of ISIL moving in on the region of Sulaymaniyah, the concern for our workshop leaders became too great, and all our flights and wonderful project were forced to be cancelled.

Sponsoring Mister Finney de Opera

We were pleased to support via the Netherlands new Donemus Foundation, Composer Joey Roukens’s Mister Finney de Opera with Carel Alphenaar librettist. The opera is an adaptation of the children’s book Mr. Finney and the World Turned Upside-down by Laurentien van Oranje and Sieb Posthuma. The creative setting, inventive costume changes, and playful musical phrasing blended with popular and classical music genres captured the imagination of many children’s first operatic experience.

Supporting the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival education component

Our second Russell Braun and Carolyn Maule Scholarship was awarded to the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival. The festival was delighted that Classical Accordion player James Crabb participated in their 2013 Education programme. James has given over 150 classes and sessions under the Live Music Now scheme.

James visited an elementary school to introduce this unique instrument and its sound to local children. His two workshops enhanced the school topic for the summer term, ”What’s a performance.” These workshops gave the children a unique experience as well as showing them that classical music can be fun.