The Valley Music Festival Sponsorship Award Scheme

Supporting Young Musicians

The major strand of our ‘Supporting Young Musicians’ initiative the Sponsorship Awards are intended to help fund and support music lessons for young people for one academic year and are paid directly to the teacher providing singing or instrumental lessons to the young person.

Eligible young people must be in full time education and live or attend school in one of the following localities.

  • Bradfield Parish
  • S36
  • Parts of S35

The Awards will be made based on the following criteria,

  • Musical potential and / or
  • Economic and social factors

(We are especially keen to support talented young people who might otherwise not be able to access tuition)

  • We also need written evidence that the tuition will be provided by a suitably qualified teacher who will provide the Awards Panel with regular progress reports.

The application process is very simple. Interested young musicians, their parents or teachers can complete the Awards App Form and email it to [email protected] 


The applications are assessed by our independent awards panel.

Previous sponsorship awards

We are now taking applications for the 2022 scheme.

Our current Awards panel members are

  • Graham Elliott – Valley Music Festival (Retired Secondary Head Teacher & LEA Adviser)
  • Helen Madden – Barnsley Music Hub. (Musician, Composer and London College of Music Examiner)
  • Rob Whale – Performer & Music Teacher (Former Classic FM Music Teacher of the Year)

Further information on the awards is available in our introduction letter Awards2022-Intro-Letter along with our Awards2022-Eligibility-Conditions.

Awards 2019

Our Award Winners for the 2019 – 2020 academic year are.

Frances Holmes (Aged 15) Stocksbridge High School – Singer.
Grace Hansen (13) Stocksbridge High School – Singer.
Gao Roberts (10) Oughtibridge Primary School – Piano.
Flynn Roberts (10) Stocksbridge Junior School – Trumpet.