The Francis Chagrin Award and what we’ve seen change in the last few years

So this great little pot of money we distribute to a wide range of composers from each year has been going for a while now. Set up in the name of one of our founding organisations’ (SPNM) founder, composer Francis Chagrin, it’s specifically there to help with the costs associated with creating a new work.

Four years ago, my esteemed colleague (and now jobshare partner) Natalia Franklin Pierce wrote this blog looking at the diversity of applicants to the Francis Chagrin Award and urging more women to apply. Four years on, and after having shared our diversity data with the whole world (!), we can now see how things have changed. In the last three years, 34% of applicants to the award have been female, smashing our organisational average of 29% for that time period. How has this come about? Through the way we talk about it? Through the urgent messages we send to composers? Let us know, we’d love to find out.

There’s still quite a way to go, but hopefully, we’re on the way to providing as much of a diverse range of composers support to create new work. Apply to the Francis Chagrin award now to be in for a chance to receive on average of £100!