The Tait Memorial Trust is a charitable organisation based in London, which aims to promote and celebrate Australian and New Zealand cultural life, by offering scholarships, performing opportunities and mentoring to young musicians and dancers who wish to pursue their advanced studies in the United Kingdom. Since 1992 the TMT has helped over 300 awardees. Violinist Emily Sun (2016 awardee) won the 2018 ABC Young Performers Award in Sydney (fellow Tait Awardees Andrey Lebedev (guitar) & Waynne Kwon (cello) were also in the final), and soprano Lauren Fagan recently appeared in Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the ROH, Covent Garden and represented Australia in the 2019 Cardiff Singer of the World.

Other distinguished Awardees include dramatic contralto Liane Keegan, dancer Chloe Keneally 2019 Winner of the BBC Young Dancer Competition (Classical Ballet Category) and Grand Finalist, pianist Jayson Gillham, and saxophonist Amy Dickson.

Awards 2020

Read the Tait’s statement

concerning our 2020 Awards here

Tait Emergency Support

Tait Online Concerts

We are delighted to announce Tait Tuesdays at Home concerts every Tuesday evening with Tait Awardees (and special guests) performing from their homes.

To promote the Tait Emergency Relief Fund for Performing Artists from Australia & New Zealand in the United Kingdom we are sharing performances online to you in your home not only to our supporters here in the U.K., but also for our many supporters in Australia and New Zealand. 

All concert links can be found here

Financial Assistance

We have established the Tait Emergency Relief Fund for Australia/New Zealand Artists to assist our talented young artists who overnight lost 6 months or more of work. Professional artists, some with losses in excess of £40,000, to artists just out of college who had a regular income of £500 to 3,000 per month which has now disappeared. Most, but thankfully not all, of the performing arts companies are claiming force majeur and leaving our awardees with an uncertain future.

Currently many of them can’t get any assistance from the U.K. government stimulus package because they are self employed, nor do they qualify for Universal Credit because they are here on restricted visas and have no access to public funds.

We opened the fund in March 2020 and are actively fundraising. This is quite a gear change for us so please bear with us through this crisis as we adjust to this new reality. I can assure you that we are taking this all very seriously

At the moment the fund is available only to Tait Awardees and to the artists who performed for us in the Bushfire concert in March. If more money comes in we may be in a position to broaden its scope. 

Applications for support  must show that you have suffered quantifiable losses with major Australian/New Zealand and overseas performing arts companies and concert organisations due to the Covid-19 crisis.

All applications will be assessed by a specially convened panel who will make recommendations to the Music and Ballet Boards, and the Tait Trustees. Applications have not opened yet but if you are in need now and satisfy the criteria noted below please get in touch with us.

For Australian professional opera singers we strongly recommend that you contact Freelance Artist Relief Australia that has recently been launched by Australian international soprano, Nicole Car.

For those of you in the UK this initiative from Help Musicians UK could be of assistance to you. bit.ly/2UxP673

Credit our bank account

CAF Bank Ltd

Tait Memorial Trust

Sort Code: 40 52 40

Account Number: 00028428

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If eligible GiftAid will be added

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