A £25,000 scholarship to fund study abroad for a period of two years.

Open to musicians of any nationality between the ages of 15 and 25,
normally residing in the UK.

The scholarship is awarded by competition
and in 2001 is open to pianists only.

Auditions will be held in London in June 2001 and the winner will be
expected to commence the period of study abroad by October 2002

JULIUS ISSERLIS
(1888-1968)

A younger contemporary of Blumenfeld, Rachmaninov, Medtner and Scriabin, Julius Isserlis (cellist Steven's grandfather) was born in Kizhinev on the Rumanian border with Russia. He studied in Kiev with Vladimir Puchalski (a Leschetizky student), and then at the Moscow Conservatoire with Safonov, the teacher of Lhevinne, Medtner and Scriabin, and Taneyev, disciple of Nikolai Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky. Winning the Conservatoire's coveted Gold Medal in 1906 - though, in company with Artur Rubinstein, Pouishnoff, and Edwin Fischer not the 1910 St Petersburg Anton Rubinstein Piano Competition - he toured Europe and America, 1907-09, before taking up a professorship at the College of the Philharmonic Society of Moscow, 1913-18. After the Revolution, he went to Vienna, establishing a reputation as pianist, pedagogue and composer. Like his emigré compatriots Medtner and Moiseiwitsch, he settled London before the Second World War (in 1938), taking British citizenship. Conspicuous by his omission from The New Grove (1980), subsequently suffering from failing eyesight, he was a frequent BBC broadcaster, specialising elegantly in the Slavonic school. He also appeared in recital and with orchestra - though never at the Proms. His pupils included Ruth Geiger in Vienna and the Medtner specialist Bernard Pinsonneault in London.