A £10,000 gift will help the next generation of stage, screen and behind-the-scenes talent fulfil their dreams at one of the world’s top destinations to study the performing and production arts.
Amazon Development Centre Scotland is supporting students as they develop their craft at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in Glasgow, a global leader in performing arts education.
Powered by performance, with a culture of creativity and collaboration, the nation’s conservatoire nurtures the most promising Scottish, UK and international artists and performers as they prepare for the professional world.
Scholarships enable young people from across Scotland and around the globe to study at an internationally renowned conservatoire. Donations remove the financial barrier or pressures they might otherwise face and may cover either part or the full cost of tuition fees, help with living costs or to purchase essential equipment.
Graeme Smith, Managing Director at Amazon Development Centre Scotland, said: “We are proud to support the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and its efforts to encourage as many people as possible to get involved with the performing arts.
“At Amazon, we’re passionate about helping young people succeed, whatever their background, and we hope this donation will help the institution as they continue to find and nurture talented artists across our community, especially in these challenging times.”
Professor Jeffrey Sharkey, Principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, added: “An arts education should be available to all and financial barriers or otherwise should never stand in the way.
“Scholarships are life changing – they open up a world of opportunity, offer enriching experiences and allow artists to immerse themselves fully in their studies as they work towards a career in the performing arts.
“We are grateful to Amazon Development Centre Scotland for their donation which is an investment in the future of the arts.”
Amazon Development Centre Scotland has been based in Edinburgh since 2004 and is responsible for devising and growing innovations that bring new levels of choice and convenience to hundreds of millions of customers around the world.
It houses teams of leading engineers, scientists, designers and product managers who work on everything from interactive user interface design to large-scale distributed systems and machine learning. The team is currently recruiting for a number of positions including software developers, engineers and applied scientists.
Community donations are one of a number of ways in which Amazon is supporting communities across the UK during COVID-19. Amazon Prime Video recently committed over £1.5 million to support the recovery of the European TV, film and theatre production community in the UK.
Throughout the pandemic Amazon has provided students with free online STEM resources and supported virtual classrooms with no-cost resources from AWS. The company has also teamed up with charity partner Magic Breakfast to deliver over 2 million healthy breakfasts to disadvantaged children around the UK.
For more information on how Amazon is supporting the UK during COVID-19, click here.
RCS is the only place in Europe where all of the performing arts are taught on one campus, with specialist training in music, drama, dance, production, education and film.
Donations to RCS’s fundraising campaign, We Are Still Here, will safeguard the future of the arts through student scholarships. We Are Still Here launched in November 2020 with a powerful short film narrated by award-winning Hollywood and West End actor James McAvoy, a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s BA Acting degree programme.
With footage filmed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the film features music from acclaimed pianist and composer Fergus McCreadie, a rising star on the European jazz scene, who is an RCS graduate and scholarship recipient.
RCS is committed to providing pathways for emerging artists, helping them to realise their potential and achieve their ambitions, regardless of their background. Its Fair Access programme and pre-higher education initiatives work with young people from across Scotland, to ensure the performing arts are accessible to all.
The award-winning Transitions programme is for Scottish residents living at postcodes that are identified as being within the top 20 per cent on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) list.
It provides funded training, tailored support and mentoring for those wishing to study the performing or production arts and prepares them for degree-level training at conservatoire or university level.
Find out more and donate to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland student scholarship fund.
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