THE MUSICMAN LEARNING CENTRE has awarded the 2015/2016 Hilton R Cliff Award to Rashaad Joseph, a Form 5 CXC Music student presently attending Corinth Secondary School. The Award will provide Rashaad with a year’s free tuition in Piano Studies.
Rashaad is the fourth student to have benefitted from this award and the second awardee to have been a product of the Corinth Secondary School music programme. Previous awardees were Zaheer Popo [2011], Lestin Celestin [2012] and Corinth graduate, Akim Joseph [2013-2014].
Rashaad, who has already been recognized as an exceptionally talented young musician, began his music studies overseas on the guitar, but when he won a scholarship to study at the School of Music in 2013, as a prize for being crowned the Corinth School’s Extempo King, he switched instruments to the saxophone and rapidly made remarkable progress. Since then, he has been playing at the School with their Concert and Jazz Band and the Black Antz ensemble, and has received a SLSM Award for being Top Student of the Wind Department. He also plays with the Teddyson John Project and gigs whenever the opportunity arises. He has opted to study piano at the Learning Centre to give him a background on a harmonic instrument which he believes will help further his stated goal of becoming a professional career musician. Rashaad is very passionate about music and his message to other youth like him is to ‘’ Follow your dreams, be productive and never let anyone discourage you from the career you wish to pursue”.
This MUSICMAN Award was named after Hilton Cliff (1870-1947), an English musician from Birmingham, who studied music in Germany and upon his return home was very much in demand in local musical circles as a pianist, church organist and choir director. He combined his own passion for music with a business career, holding a senior position in his father’s timber business up until 1910, when, upon his father’s passing, he was required to take over full responsibility for the company. He counted many prominent musicians amongst his circle of friends, including the young violin virtuoso Paul Beard, who subsequently moved from Birmingham to London, and in 1932 was appointed by Sir Thomas Beecham to lead the newly formed London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Hilton Cliff Award is funded by third generation members of the Cliff family, including John Paul Bailey, SLMM, founder member and former Director of the St Lucia School of Music, and now proprietor of the MUSICMAN Store & Learning Centre.