Proposal: Classical music scholarships

{{proposal|status=approved|member1=[[user:Tony1|Tony1]]|member2=[[user:John Vandenberg|John Vandenberg]]|approver=[[Meeting:2011_SGM/Minutes#Proposal:_Classical_music_scholarships|SGM]]}}

The proposal is to fund two scholarships: one for a classical music performance student, and one for an audio-engineering student. Both would be administered by an Australian university in 2012.

== Background ==

Wikimedia Commons is a repository of almost 10 million media files that can be freely downloaded; these are mostly images, with audio files representing only 1.3% of the repository. In addition, relatively few recordings of classical music are available from any source for free re-use, and many of those recordings are suboptimal in terms of performance and audio-engineering. This contrasts with the abundance of high-quality commercial recordings of classical music under copyright restrictions.

National Wikimedia chapters have been actively collaborating with cultural institutions to promote free cultural content (Wikimedia Australia, for example, is working closely with the State Library of Queensland, making 50,000 historical photographs available to Commons). Nowhere in any country have these efforts involved music recordings.

In October 2010, WMAu member Tony Souter volunteered to design and negotiate a collaborative project between WMAu and an Australian tertiary institution to encourage talented music and audio-engineering students to work together to create high-quality, free recordings of classical music. The project—the first of its type in the world—would enable the WMAu community to develop resources in conjunction with an Australian tertiary institution to promote the creation of Free Cultural Works.

On 25 October, the WMAu Committee formally decided that Tony would officially represent WMAu in drafting such a scheme with the partner organisation. A formal meeting at the university took place on 29 November, in which several options were developed and the institution agreed in principle to the project. Among these was the idea of awarding scholarships on a competitive basis to encourage the production and upload of high-quality files. The project would be designed to support the creation of free music content by young musicians and audio-engineers.

On 13 January 2011, Tony brought back to the Committee a draft proposal for consideration, covering artistic, technical, and logistic matters.  The Committee has discussed the proposal, but has not been in a position to vote on it within the required 28 days. As a result, the proposal has been referred to the membership to be voted on at the [[Meeting:2011 SGM|16 April SGM]], in accordance with the [[proposals policy]].

At the 2011 SGM, this proposal was approved. [[Meeting:2011_SGM/Minutes#Proposal:_Classical_music_scholarships]]
[[Category:Music]]