Katherine McGillivray's Get a Life Fund
Patron Yo-Yo Ma

Who is eligible to apply for a grant from the Fund?
You must be a professional musician who is over the age of thirty and is a native of the United Kingdom or Éire, or is resident in those countries.

How might the Fund help me?
If you meet the above criteria, it could help you to take forward your personal and musical development, in ways not normally possible within your career structure.

What timescale does the Fund envisage for this development?
The Fund will only give you help to undertake a project that would involve a sabbatical or extended period of time away from your usual employment. This would normally be between six months and a year, but the trustees would be willing to consider other periods of time.

How much might be available to me?
You can apply for a grant of up to £10,000. This would be a one-off grant and you would not be eligible to apply again.

How many grants does the Fund offer? The Fund aims to award two grants each year.

Please include the following with your application.

1. Your CV
We are happy to have this in your own format, but it should in any case include the following items:

• your name
• date of birth
• place of birth – if you were not born in the UK or Éire, please give details of your residential status in those countries
• address for correspondence
• telephone number
• e-mail address
• summary of your tertiary education and training outline of your career, including details of current employment

2. Details of your development project
These should include:

• title and brief description
• where it will take place
• start date and duration

3. Statement of your aims
Explain for us your purpose in pursuing this project, and how you believe it will effect your creative life.

4. Costs and sources of support
You should give us the estimated costs of the project, and an outline of how you intend to finance it, other than by a grant from this fund.

5. Referees
Please give the names and addresses of two referees to whom we may write.

6. Acknowledgement
We shall acknowledge all applications we receive and will select the successful candidates by interviewing a shortlist. If you are being invited for interview, you will be given at least two weeks notice. The interviews will be held in London.  The Fund can assist with reasonable travel expenses.

Your application should be returned to

Katherine McGillivray’s Get a Life Fund
Flat 0/1, 53 Fergus Drive, Glasgow, G20 6AQ, Scotland

NB If you wish to submit your application by email, please send a request for our email address via the ‘get in touch’ page.

Katherine McGillivray (1970 – 2006) grew up playing the violin but in her late teens discovered the viola. This led to a change of career away from primary school teaching and child psychology and towards the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and a 1st class Honours BA in Music. She was drawn to the baroque viola and viola d’amore during her studies and spent a year playing with the European Union Baroque Orchestra.

In 1993 Katherine moved from Glasgow to London for a postgraduate course at the Royal Academy of Music, studying baroque and modern viola. On graduating, she quickly became a part of the Early Music scene; not only by way of her musical skills but also through her unique and much-valued ability to knit a group of players together in a quietly ego-free and always humorous way. In the following years she came to play principal viola with many groups including The King’s Consort, The Purcell Quartet, Sonnerie, the English Baroque Soloists, The Gabrieli Consort and Players, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Concerto Caledonia. Her love of teaching remained, and she took up posts at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music as baroque viola professor, and was increasingly being called upon to teach at summer schools and on the EUBO courses.

In 2004, after ten years in the business, Katherine realised that she was in danger of becoming a jaded professional. She needed a break to refresh herself and her music making and also wanted to investigate more deeply the musical learning process and expand her teaching skills. She decided to take a year out, and chose to spend it in Sweden learning Sweden’s national instrument the nyckelharpa and studying Swedish folk music. This choice had its roots in the occasion of a post-concert reception in Northern Sweden with the group Sonnerie where a well known nyckelharpa player had performed for the audience and players, and after chatting with him Katherine had asked to try it herself. Now, several years later, she took up this thread, found herself an instrument, rapidly learnt some tunes and applied for the one year course at the Eric Sahlström Institute, Tobo, Sweden.

She was awarded a research grant from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to concurrently investigate the learning process in the folk music tradition and look into the ways the classical conservatoire system might benefit from some aspects of it. The Scottish Educational Trust assisted with funding too, but told Katherine that it was unusual for the trust to make awards to someone at her stage of career. This proved a wider problem, and she was left with a significant shortfall. The year only became a viable undertaking with an unexpected private donation of £10,000.

Katherine spent her sabbatical year at full stretch learning a new instrument, a new language, dancing, singing and thinking hard about the learning process. She was also writing her own tunes. She returned to the UK in summer 2006, full of inspiration and music, and ready to revolutionise the way she taught. Katherine died suddenly and unexpectedly of a brain tumor on August 1st 2006. She was surrounded by good friends and colleagues, playing the music of Bach which was very close to her heart.

The fund has been set up in her memory out of the loss felt by her friends, family, fellow musicians, neighbours, teachers and students, and their determination to carry on the process she had embarked upon. The awards the fund will make, of £10,000, reflect the donation Katherine herself was given which made her year of ‘getting a life’ possible.