AIR studios to fund new diversity scholarship for Tonmeister course

AIR, the recording studios founded by Sir George Martin, has announced it is to fund an annual scholarship to the University of Surrey’s Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) course.

The AIR Diversity Scholarship for Tonmeisters will be worth £30,000 to each student over the course of their degree and is open to those from underrepresented ethnic groups, with a financially disadvantaged background, who may otherwise not have been able to take up a place to study at Surrey.

The successful applicants, who will be studying A-level maths, physics and music or music technology, will get the education and training that will enable them to pursue careers in music and recorded sound.  

The scholarship hopes to address the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in the UK's audio industry.

Kamila Serkebaeva, Director at AIR, comments: 'The excellence of knowledge and technical understanding that the Tonmeister degree provides is unrivalled in the music recording industry.

'We have nurtured bright new generations of University of Surrey graduates for decades and have come to understand the deep value of participation in higher education.

'For this reason and following on our recent commitment to a stronger and more inclusive music recording ecosystem, we set up the AIR Diversity Scholarship for the Tonmeister course. We hope that this will be the beginning of a wider reform to increase representation in the music industry and that we’ll soon see diverse values, goals, and concerns brought into the dialogue and the quality of our collective work.'

The Tonmeister course, now in its 50th year, blends musical study, audio engineering and mastery of sound-recording operation and practice.

Scholarship applications are open now for an October 2021 start. Click here for more details and the full eligibility criteria.