A YOUNG bassoon player from Wincanton is one of two musicians named as Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s next BSO Young Associates. Kamilla Kovacs (pictured right) and Bristol-based oboist Lucy Keeley will begin making music in hospitals, schools, community centres and more, when they join Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) as BSO Young Associates this month.
The Young Associates programme offers people based in the South West and traditionally under-represented in the UK’s arts workforce* a chance to catapult their career. The eight-month bursary-supported training programme, which is generously supported by The Calleva Foundation, runs from November.
Launched in 2022, the biennial programme has nurtured eight instrumentalists to date, each of whom continues to pursue a freelance portfolio career in music.
The Young Associates are supported through practical experience, training and one-to-one mentoring from the orchestra’s Participate team and its BSO Associate Musicians, who live and work throughout the region. The two aspiring community music leaders will also work alongside the Orchestra’s professional musicians in community settings.
Kamilla Kovács is a bassoon player passionate about music performance, education and cultural management. Based in Wincanton, she supports a music-making group at the town’s Balsam Centre. Kamilla – who trained in Salzburg at the Mozarteum University and Lugano, (Conservatory of Southern Switzerland), has taught bassoon, piano, recorder and music theory. She has also worked with the Dorset Rural Music School and with local SEND pupils.
On the Young Associate programme, she is looking forward to deepening her learning of “creating and leading music programmes which are both engaging and helpful.”
BSO chief executive Dougie Scarfe says: “We’re thrilled to welcome Lucy and Kamilla to the orchestra, as they become our fourth cohort of BSO Young Associates. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra makes music with people in communities throughout a 10,000 square-mile region in the South West of England, each week bringing joy into hospital wards and classrooms, community centres and much more beyond the concert hall.”