In Portugal, the EDP Foundation provides scholarships to young musicians.
The EDP Foundation defines themselves, since its creation, as an active intervening player in the cultural patronage, in supporting public and private institutions, and in cultural projects. This support has made several projects possible, cultural, plastic arts, dancing, architectural, design, music, among other projects. Including the Companhia Nacional de Bailado, the Fundação Casa da Música, the Fundação Serralves, the Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa, the Fundação Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva and the Orquestra Sinfónica Juvenil, or Juvenile Symphonic Orchestra. It’s within this context, consequently, that the supporting of the Juvenile Symphonic Orchestra scholarships, is inserted. The Juvenile Symphonic Orchestra, unique in Portugal, provides training in the specific field of the symphonic music practice, as a fundamental element in the education of young musicians, in the sense that they reach excellency in their performance and get ready for the work world.
Art, Culture and Education as pillars of the future
“Throughout the years, the elders found a good recipe for education: gymnastics for the body and music for your soul” - Plato
Ciao Mecenas, the adviser for the roman emperor Octavius Augustus, was the responsible for the promotion and sponsorship of the artists, consequently giving birth to the patronage (mecenato).
Many artists, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, benefited from that support and many were the patrons, as the renowned Lourenço de Médici, whom provided it. Patronage, as an important boosting mechanism for culture and arts, kept thriving during Renaissance and lingered to this day.
The EDP Foundation, a private institution with a non-profit public utility statue, created by EDP (Portugal Energies) in December 2004, has the objective to contribute towards a better life through courses of action of cultural, scientific, and social nature. It was, in this ambit, where the support to the JSO (Juvenile Symphonic Orchestra), sponsored by the CMP (Portuguese Musical Circle), was started through scholarships.
Educational and Artistic Mission
The EDP Foundation, through the financing of scholarships for the Juvenile Symphonic Orchestra, has a fundamental role in the training/education of young musicians, in a high-standard professionalization and improvement perspective, envisioning the access to the working world.
Scholarships are destined for JSO elements and post-graduation. According to its regulation, in the first clause, point one, “with the main objective to support training and professionalization of an elevated artistic potential musicians from the Juvenile Symphonic Orchestra, the EDP Foundation assigned to the CMP-JSO, according to the protocol, financial assistance for the scholarships attribution”.
In 2021/22, six 15€ monthly scholarships and five in the amount of 180€ to JSO elements and a post-graduate scholarship in the amount of 900€ (unique payment).
A more artistic social future
Being an entity with a public utility statue, the EDP Foundation, being a resource for the JSO, has a cultural mission to provide for a more creative and wise society. In this sense, the cultural excellence and artistic modernism, take the forefront of preponderant elements of identity and affirmation by the Foundation.
