Palm Beach Symphony Announces New Music Scholarship Competition

Palm Beach Symphony has announced the Annual Mary Hilem Taylor Music Scholarship Competition offering significant cash prizes and performance opportunities to promising young artists with financial needs residing in or attending an institution of higher education in South Florida.

"While we have impacted the lives of more than 56,000 K-12 students in recent years, we are excited to add this new opportunity to promote the professional growth of college-age musicians," said Palm Beach Symphony CEO David McClymont. "The music scholarship competition is named for the mother of our Board Member Felicia Taylor who was inspired to extend our educational programs to nurture advanced studies in music and help promising young artists with financial needs."

Before her death in 2009, Mary Hilem Taylor was active in the Palm Beach community raising funds for local causes including the YMCA Harmony House, the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts and 211 of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, the 24-hour hotline for people in crisis. She began playing music as a child with members of her family who each played an instrument.

"Mom was responsible for the wind section and loved to play the flute and the piccolo," Taylor recalls. "She became an international model and graced the covers of Vogue, Elle and numerous other well-known magazines. Along with a promising future ahead of her, she never stopped playing the flute. My mother never had any formal training and barely graduated from high school. The value of music however, was a gift she inherited from her father and I know she would enjoy passing along this gift. In memory of her and inspired by her passion, it is with great pride that the Mary Hilem Taylor Music Scholarship Competition has been created. May this scholarship help bring dreams come true."

In order to provide the most equitable opportunities to students, the scholarship competition will rotate each year with the inaugural event for woodwinds followed by strings (2022) and brass (2023). The first round of finalists will be determined via submitted video auditions. The final round of the competition will take place October 23, 2021 in front of a live audience in the Vera Lea Rinker Hall at Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach. Judges will announce their decisions at the conclusion of the final round and all winners will perform in a chamber concert together with musician members of the Palm Beach Symphony on May 24, 2022 at the Stiller Auditorium at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.

Scholarships with be awarded for first place ($12,500), second place ($7,500) and third place ($4,500). Additionally, an audience choice award of $500 will be awarded at the chamber concert in May. Scholarship awards may be used to help further the students' musical education by assisting with music festivals, national or international music competitions, paying for instrument repairs or accessories, upgrading their current instrument or covering college expenses.

Applicants must be 18-24 years of age, be enrolled at an institution of higher education, and reside or attend college in the tri-county South Florida area (Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami Dade counties). The selection criteria is based on merit, integrity, artistic performance, potential and financial need.

The submission deadline for application paperwork is September 1 and the video audition must be submitted by September 10. The application and more information are available at https://www.palmbeachsymphony.org/programs/mht-scholarship.

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