TALENTED singer Ruby Wood has received a major boost to her new career.
The Huddersfield-based vocalist has been awarded the Yamaha/Classic FM Jazz Scholarship, set up to acknowledge the most outstanding jazz music graduates from the leading conservatoires and music colleges.
Ruby received her £1,000 prize from broadcaster Helen Mayhew.
She then joined five other scholarship winners in concert before an audience of music chiefs, promoters, journalists and MPs at the Houses of Parliament ceremony.
All winners will go on to make a CD, sponsored by Yamaha Music (UK), which will be distributed on the cover of UK jazz music magazine Jazzwise and which will be played on Classic FM.
Ruby, 21, recently graduated from Leeds College of Music, where she was awarded maximum marks for her final recital and was the only singer – and only woman – among the winners.
She said: “This news has come as a wonderful surprise. I have just left the security of Leeds College of Music to start a career as a solo musician, so this is a great confidence boost for me.
“I shall use the money to buy myself some equipment, which will come as a great relief to the musicians of Huddersfield, whose gear I’ve been cadging for years.”
In effect, the award makes Ruby the most promising new jazz singer to emerge in the UK in 2008.
