DUBAI: The Andrea Bocelli Foundation (AFB) and Saudi Arabia-based organization Community Jameel have partnered up to launch a new scholarship targeting singers seeking to study at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London, including budding Saudi talents.

Open to students from around the world, including Saudi Arabia, the Andrea Bocelli Foundation-Community Jameel Scholarship supports students who study full-time at the RCM and will be awarded on merit at audition and need.

The ABF supports students who study full-time at the London musical institute. It was founded by the world-famous tenor in 2011 to empower people and communities affected by poverty, illiteracy and social exclusion.

Meanwhile, Community Jameel is an organization that focuses on creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation and youth that was founded by Saudi business leader Mohammed Jameel. Last year, during Bocelli’s performance at the Winter in Tantora festival in AlUla, the singer shared on-stage how Jameel had inspired him to pursue philanthropy and launch the scholarship.  

“Community Jameel is committed to supporting access to education for young Saudis, in line with Vision 2030,”  Fady Jameel, the international president of Community Jameel, said to Arab News.

“Whether through this new scholarship, or Art Jameel's traditional arts programme in Jeddah, or with King Abdulaziz University joining the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab, we are working to ensure Saudi students and creative talents have the best opportunity to thrive.”

Echoing on his statement, RCM Director Professor Colin Lawson thanked the ABF and Community Jameel, stating that “philanthropic partnerships such as this is vital to the vision.”

In recent months, and in line with Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has taken steps to bolster the nation’s musical creatives. Last January, Egyptian violinist Mahmoud Sorour launched a musical institute in Riyadh, with support and sponsorship from the Kingdom’s government, that focuses in providing violin classes and houses a recording studio available for artists and students alike to record their music.

At the request of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Sorour plans to train 50 Saudi violinists who will go on to perform at a new opera house in Jeddah, due to be completed by 2022.