Fourth-year cello major, Wu Sha
For the second year running, the Royal Over-Seas League (ROSL) held auditions for its ROSL Singapore Music Scholarship at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music on 18 to 19 November 2008. Valued at $10,000, the ROSL ARTS scholarship is offered to a third or fourth-year instrumentalist currently studying at the Conservatory for a four-week study trip to the United Kingdom (UK) in August/September 2009. The aim is to offer a young musician the opportunity, at the outset of his/her career, to experience the richness and diversity of professional musical life in the UK. It is designed to assist an outstanding young musician considering post-graduate study in the UK. Over the past 12 years, ROSL ARTS has offered similar scholarships to musicians from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka.
This year's adjudicating panel includes the Director of ROSL ARTS, Roderick Lakin, and members from the Cappa Ensemble as well as previous ROSL prizewinners: Alasdair Beatson, Brian O’Kane and Bartosz Woroch. The panel of judges was impressed by the very high standard of all candidates who auditioned. However, it was fourth-year student Wu Sha who shone and clinched the scholarship.
Wu Sha studied at the Middle School attached to the Sichuan Conservatory of Music before joining the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. From 2003 to 2005, she was awarded a full scholarship by Hong Kong’s Morningside Education Foundation to participate in the Morningside Music Bridge programme at the Mount Royal College in Calgary, Canada. She has performed in masterclasses conducted by renowned artists such as Janis Laurs, David Takeno and Ralph Kirshbaum. Wu Sha is now studying with Qin Li-Wei, a 1997 ROSL Gold Medallist, and plays on a 1908 Pietro Grulli cello on loan from the Rin Collection.