A 25-year-old Malaysian student has become the first to be awarded a new Yamaha Piano Scholarship at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).
Twenty-five-year-old Matthew Kam was in the middle of his final recital exams when he was told the Manchester conservatoire had awarded him the £3,000 Yamaha scholarship. The money will fund a further year of studies with Norma Fisher, a teacher whom Kam describes as ‘charismatic, enabling me to rise above the technical difficulties of a piece and concentrate on the heart of the music’.
Kam began piano lessons at the age of five in Sarawak. His family moved to Kuala Lumpur when he was 12 and then to Australia, where he became a pupil of legendary teacher Max Cook at Melbourne University. Cook suggested Kam sign up for an audition when the late Mark Ray, then head of the RNCM’s school of keyboard studies, was visiting and giving masterclasses. That audition resulted in an initial scholarship place at the RNCM.
Yamaha already offers similar awards at the Royal Scottish Acaedmy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. The scholarship is not awarded by open competition but is in the gift of the college to a talented piano student who requires further scholarship funding to pursue higher studies.