Hello and thank you for taking the time to read this. My name is Griff Wadkin and I am a Cellist studying a master’s degree in music performance at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. During my undergraduate degree I was lucky enough to be loaned a high quality bow and cello by an organisation called Benslow music, and with these amazing tools I was able to achieve many things such as a first class degree, principal chair in every conservatoire orchestra, the Lionel Handy Cello Cup for the best conservatoire cellist and a scholarship offer for the continuation of my studies.

Unfortunately once my undergraduate degree was completed I was forced to give these beautiful tools back and left with no Cello or bow of a sufficient standard to continue my progress. Luckily I have recently been awarded a long term loan of a fantastic cello, but am looking to raise funds to be able to afford a bow to match. In the hyper inflated musical instrument market a professional standard bow can set cellists back between £5-20k, however I have been offered one I am very happy with for a highly discounted price of £1500 should I be able to raise the funds. As one of 8 children and not from a particularly affluent back round, my family have already sacrificed a lot to get me where I am today, and the costs of my studies as well as the other hardships of being a young classical musician have meant I am struggling to raise these funds myself… this is why I need some help.

If you do choose to donate you should know that it will be going towards a young musician who is passionate about spreading music far and wide and at the highest level. To play at my best I practice up to 6 hours each day, on top of rehearsals, performances, teaching etc… I regularly volunteer with community projects, visiting schools, old people homes, SEN settings and community centres to give people the opportunity to hear live classical music who wouldn’t normally get the chance. I am a teacher on the ARCO project, teaching children from Soweto in South Africa over Skype free of charge, and have also set up my own organisation ‘Resonations’, providing high quality classical concerts in communities where they are not a normal occurrence