Thank you to all schools that applied for our Great Start Grant this year. The Grant, now in its 4th year has always received an overwhelming response and 2020 is no different. It is clear by all of the well thought out applications that we have hardworking, knowledgeable teachers that make the most with the resources they have.

The Yamaha Great Start Grant was thrown quite the curveball in 2020 along with every other business activities planned for this year. This new reality has had evolving repercussions for us at Yamaha and to a much a greater degree the Australian education system, and it is this uncertainty that has affected the way we award the grant this year.

The new program for the 2020 grant was decided upon after taking 3 main factors into account, the current closures and unpredictability of the school year, the unsettled economic landscape and (most importantly) the fact that we still wanted to award a grant in 2020.

After much discussion with the grant panel (Mat Taylor - Yamaha Marketing Manager, Jaclyn Williams - Yamaha Marketing & Communications Manager, Fem Belling - Australian Artist) and senior staff at Yamaha Music Australia the Yamaha GREAT START GRANT 2020 will be awarded as per the below announcement:

Yamaha Music Australia announces recipients of the 2020 Great Start Grant

Over many hours the Yamaha Grant Panel reviewed and discussed all applications submitted to us, and without being able to visit and interview staff at length we decided to award a scaled back grant in 2020 to 3 top schools, these top 3 were chosen using their applications only.

The 3 schools will receive a voucher of $3000 RRP each to spend on musical instruments from Yamaha Australian (including other brands Yamaha Australia represents) in whatever way can help them achieve some musical education goals in 2020.

Congratulations to the recipients:

Katherine High School (NT)

Croydon Community School (VIC)

Picnic Creek State School (QLD)

The Yamaha Great Start Grant will be back and better than ever in in 2021! Thank you again to all the schools that submitted and application.