Borletti-Buitoni Trust Names 2025 Community Grant and Artist Encore Recipients

A number of organizations will receive a £45,000 grant to support community work

The Borletti-Buitoni Trust (BBT) recently announced the recipients of its BBT Community Grants for 2025. The UK-based trust, which has been supporting outstanding young musicians for more than twenty years, established its biennial Communities grants in 2019.

The grants, which are worth £45,000, are intended to support underprivileged and disadvantaged sectors of the population through music. This endeavor can include scenarios such as supporting the careers of emerging artists or helping to bring music to communities who would not otherwise have access to it.

This year, BBT has opted to continue supporting four organizations from previous grant rounds, to invest in projects that are already underway. Grantees include:

• Kenya’s Art of Music Foundation (which brings music to children in Korogocho, one of Kenya’s biggest slums)
• Germany's MitMachMusik Berlin (to support ensemble workshop days refugee and low-income children)
• Italy's Fondazione Perugia Musica Classica (to bring workshops and concerts to diverse under-privileged communities)
• The Netherlands’ Sounds of Change Academy (to set up a new course training musicians and mental health professionals to support people in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Ukraine in coping with trauma).

In 2025, BBT has also added a new grant in the form of the BBT Artist Encore Awards. These £15,000 grants are available to past BBT Artists, and will enable them to undertake a community music project that is focused on social inequality. A secondary function of these awards is to strengthen the connection between BBT and its Artist alumni.

Recipients include violinist Viviane Hagner, cellist and composer Alessio Pianelli, and pianist Shai Wosner.

"I notice a growing number of musically trained people, including our young musicians, who are very serious about finding ways to share their talent and skills with disadvantaged sectors of the population for whom participation is not so easy – and they recognize the mutual benefits of doing this," said Ilaria Borletti Buitoni, the co-founder of BBT. "I want to do all I can to encourage and support this exchange of music and the joy that sharing it can bring to everybody concerned."

"After speaking with a number of BBT Artists already engaged in outreach work and recipients of BBT Community Grants, we know that there is mutual gain and fulfillment to be had," said Toby Smith, BBT Chief Executive. "So we then approached more of our alumni interested in this kind of philanthropy and have chosen three pilot projects to support. Our intention is that their success will inspire creative initiatives from more BBT Artists, for which we will seek further financial support to extend BBT funds."