Because sometimes its good to offer a helping hand, especially when I finally have some time to take a breather and update my own blog. Nabillah Jalal is the only one of the few Singaporeans to be accepted in the Royal College of Music's recent intake of piano students. Unfortunately she's rather strapped for cash at the moment. Below is the letter she sent in, go give it a read and see if you are able to help. Thanks!
Hello The Mad Scene,
My name is Nabillah Jalal and I am 19 years old.
Recently, I have been granted instant acceptance to the world's number 1 conservertoire, Royal College Music (RCM) in London which accepts only 14 students worldwide annually to its RCM's Bachelor of Music (Piano) course and I am very thrilled to be part of this select group of pianists. However, an education abroad in one of the world's finest music conservatories is beyond my family's financial reach and we need all the help we can get to enable me to go forth and grasp this huge opportunity.
We are currently trying our best to pool our resources for this and I am also currently seeking financial help through various scholarships and the assistance of my MP. I am writing to you in hope that the local media will be interested to pick up my story and through it, reach out to a community who might be able to offer us some help.
Some clips of my past performances can be found here (http://youtu.be/cbUzf91P2Z8) I can also be contacted at nabillahjalal@gmail.com or +65 9620 3874 and I look forward to a positive reply from you.
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Hello The Mad Scene,
My name is Nabillah Jalal and I am 19 years old.
Recently, I have been granted instant acceptance to the world's number 1 conservertoire, Royal College Music (RCM) in London which accepts only 14 students worldwide annually to its RCM's Bachelor of Music (Piano) course and I am very thrilled to be part of this select group of pianists. However, an education abroad in one of the world's finest music conservatories is beyond my family's financial reach and we need all the help we can get to enable me to go forth and grasp this huge opportunity.
We are currently trying our best to pool our resources for this and I am also currently seeking financial help through various scholarships and the assistance of my MP. I am writing to you in hope that the local media will be interested to pick up my story and through it, reach out to a community who might be able to offer us some help.
Some clips of my past performances can be found here (http://youtu.be/cbUzf91P2Z8) I can also be contacted at nabillahjalal@gmail.com or +65 9620 3874 and I look forward to a positive reply from you.
Interesting post, and I deeply sympathise. Just wondered if she had considered applying for a place in NAFA (which has a tie-in with Royal College of Music in London) or Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, which offers full scholarships for talented students. For the cash strapped, that would be a more realistic option.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I would have loved to have studied Medicine in UK, but was grateful to have gotten a place in NUS (with sizeable government subsidies), and that was where I stayed. Anyone good enough for RCM would be good enough for YST, right?
The Chopin Etude shows raw talent, so by all means pursue your dream, in London or Singapore!
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DeleteReplying to Chang Tou Liang - with regards to your last sentence of the 2nd paragraph, it is not necessarily so. There are two main differences here - RCM is always actively searching for students from the East as evidenced by their annual recruitment here. Many budding pianists have gotten initial acceptance, with a 'scholarship' being dangled along with it. However, further down the line, one finds out that the amount of scholarship is in actual fact, very little. One ends up paying close to full tuition, which is exactly what RCM wants and needs from international students.
ReplyDeleteYong Siew Toh, on the other hand, gives out full scholarships, and precisely because of this, their selection of incoming students is very small and extremely selective, compared to the numbers accepted by RCM yearly. I have known of quite a few pianists being accepted into RCM but not YST in the past few years. It is a similar case with Curtis compared with other pretigious colleges in the States - the former being a full scholarship institution, therfore, highly more competitive and selective in their audition process.
In the past 10 years or so, the lure of overseas paying students have helped keep British music colleges (faced with their unending and often unsuccessful quest for more government funding) afloat, so that the standard of music students accepted can vary greatly.
I know, because I myself is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music.