The Institute announces Guitar Scholarship winner

Nick Andrews, winner of the full guitar scholarship
Nick Andrews, winner of the full guitar scholarship

The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (formerly the Guitar Institute) was recently the proud host of the 2008 guitar scholarship finals, with the standard of performances the best that ICMP has ever seen.

Eight guitar finalists were competing for one full and one partial scholarship (worth £4950 and £2500 respectively) onto the Institute's world renowned Higher Diploma. The Higher Diploma is a specialist one-year full-time course, developed by the Institute to train and develop students of guitar, bass, drums and vocals for a career in the music industry.

Each finalist underwent a short interview before taking to the stage to give a performance in front of a panel of specially invited judges, including Yamaha's Mark Kirkland, and senior ICMP tutors. The standard of all of the finalists was extremely high, so after some very difficult deliberations the panel awarded the full guitar scholarship, sponsored by Yamaha and MusicRadar.com, to Nick Andrews, and the partial scholarship to Kyle Lake.

Every year the Institute and its industry partners provide Scholarships worth in excess of £30,000, representing a fantastic opportunity for deserving students to access world class training and tuition at one of the world's leading schools of contemporary music.

Watch out for news of the 2009 Scholarships and for your chance to join. Institute alumni can be found throughout today's music industry, working with artists of the calibre of Babyshambles, Lemar, Radiohead, Eric Clapton, Keane and KT Tunstall.

For further information on how to apply for a course at the Institute or to download an application form, call +44 (0) 20 7328 0222 or email info@icmp.uk.com.

Chris Vinnicombe worked with us here on the MusicRadar team from the site's initial launch way back in 2007, and also contributed to Guitarist magazine as Features Editor until 2014, as well as Total Guitar magazine, amongst others. These days he can be found at Gibson Guitars, where he is editor-in-chief.