“Chalet Monet is a house with a thousand stories. It is living history, theatrical, a beautiful home with enormous spirit like its owners. It radiates grandeur yet intimacy with places to sit and contemplate, views to linger over, books to be read, paintings to admire and music to listen to. It is a treasure trove for the senses where many a story has been told or begun. Only its walls and its owners remember the decades of music making here and possibly the odd neighbour and the cows on the grassy slopes”.
Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation
This September, Richard Bonynge and the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation launched this stunning new book in honour of Richard Bonynge’s 90th birthday and his lifelong partnership with Dame Joan Sutherland. Inside its 344 pages, over 1000 photographs bring to life the lavish home of the greatest international cultural icons in opera, Dame Joan Sutherland OM AC DBE and her husband, Maestro Richard Bonynge AC CBE.
High on the slopes of the village of Les Avants, overlooking Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Chalet Monet is a spectacularly unique residence, brimming with antiques, paintings and objets d’art. The opulence of each of the distinctive rooms over the four floors and vistas is artfully captured in stunning photography.
In his charming, eloquent, conversational style, Richard Bonynge takes us inside the home he has shared with Dame Joan, and in so doing provides rare insight into their lives, the lives of opera and movie stars, royalty, presidents and cultural icons whom they called friends and neighbours.
The Tait Memorial Trust has been fortunate to obtain a limited number of copies for sale as part of Richard Bonynge’s London birthday celebrations and to support the new Tait Award in Richard’s name. We are thankful to Melbourne Books for donating books in support of this initiative. The Tait Memorial Trust has 10 copies personally signed by Richard to award to the first 10 people who donate £250 or more to the new Tait Memorial Trust award for a young conductor set up in honour of Richard Bonynge. These will become a significant collector’s item. This is a great opportunity to become the owner of one of these special books, or to give to a friend as a very special gift, and in doing so to support young musical artists.
The profit from books sold on behalf of the TMT at the usual price of £80 (includes P&P) will go directly to the new award.
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Chalet Monet£80.00 -
Chalet Monet – Special edition signed by Richard Bonynge£250.00
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Make a Donation to the Bonynge Award Fund£5.00 – £1,000.00
The book is now available and would make a wonderful Christmas Gift!
Our concert celebration in honour of Richard Bonynge is still available to view. Click the ‘Buy Tickets’ button below to learn more.
Richard Bonynge 90th Birthday Gala Concert – Broadcast September 29th
Tait Tuesdays at Home
In support of the Tait Emergency Relief Fund for Australian & New Zealand Artists.
The Tait Memorial Trust
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 Emergency Funding
Round 1 applications have now closed.
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
To support the fund
Credit our bank account
CAF Bank Ltd
Tait Memorial Trust
Sort Code: 40 52 40
Account Number: 00033630
Donate to support the Fund in most currencies now via CAF Bank
If eligible GiftAid will be added
Donate in most currencies now via PayPal
Full terms and conditions can be found here
The Tait Memorial Trust was formed in 1992 by Isla Baring OAM in memory of Sir Frank and Viola, Lady Tait and the Tait brothers who played such an important part in the establishment of theatre and the performing arts in Australia & New Zealand. The Trust offers awards/grants for postgraduate study, performance opportunities to young musicians and performing artists from Australia and New Zealand, and general help in the furtherance of their careers while resident in the UK.
Registered U.K Charity: 1042797
info@taitmemorialtrust.org
© Copyright 2020 The Tait Memorial Trust. All Rights Reserved
