Alumni
This will soon shows information regarding people who have been helped by the Trust in the past.
2004 Award Winners
Melissa Favell took a postgraduate course studying the Double Bass at the Royal College of Music, having previously completed a BA Honours degree at Colchester Institute. Her Tom Acton Memorial Trust bursary enabled her to continue her studies through contributing to her postgraduate tuition fees. Since leaving the Royal College of Music in summer 2005, Melissa has embarked on a career as a freelance double bassist and teacher. She currently lives and works in London and regularly returns to Essex to perform with local groups and to tutor for the Essex Youth Orchestras.
Oliver Carey is now in his second year at Trinity College of Music studying the trumpet with Brian Thomson and Robert Farley. With his bursary from the Tom Acton Trust he was able to purchase a piccolo trumpet and more music for his studies. He was also warmly appreciative of the opportunity to perform a 30 minute recital at the Award Winners Concert last year.
Suzanne Thorne studies the oboe at the Royal College of Music Junior department and put her bursary from the Tom Acton Trust towards her fees there. She is currently in her final year at Westcliffe High School for Girls and is due to start undergraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music this September, having been awarded a Major Entrance Scholarship. She recently won the ‘Sussex Woodwind Prize’ at the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition, and having won the Essex Young Musician John Lill Award at Ongar last July she will be giving the recital for the Trust in September this year when our 2006 bursaries will be presented.
Suzie has recently given two performances of Vaughan Williams’ Oboe Concerto, one at St John’s, Smith Square with Sir Neville Marriner and the National Youth String Academy, and one at the Royal College of Music with Richard Dickens and the RCM Junior Department Chamber Orchestra.