Talented Waterford artist scoops funding boost of nearly €20k in Arts Council bursary

A west Waterford-based artist has been awarded nearly €20,000 by the Arts Council to develop an innovative new project exploring music for deaf and hearing children.

Composer and musician George Higgs has received a €19,220 bursary under the Arts Council's Young People, Children and the Arts scheme. The funding will allow him to reflect on and explore multisensory graphic notation approaches with the support of world-renowned percussionist Evelyn Glennie as mentor.

The Arts Council's bursary scheme is one of its flagship supports for individual artists, providing awards of up to €20,000 to give creatives the time and resources to focus on new work.

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Maura McGrath, Chair of the Arts Council, said: "The bursary awards are about giving artists the most precious resource they need — time. Time to think, to create, to experiment, and to develop their craft.

"These artists are working across an extraordinary range of disciplines, and their projects will have a lasting impact not only on their own practices but also on audiences and communities across Ireland and beyond."

The awards are made to artists across every county in Ireland as well as those based abroad, covering a wide variety of fields including music, visual arts, theatre, dance, literature and film.

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