The BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Scheme is a scheme that was created to help “to support young musicians on the threshold of an international career to reach the next stage of their development. It brings some of the world’s most promising new talent to listeners across the UK through BBC Radio 3 broadcasts.” Fergus McCreadie is now the eighth jazz musician to be added to the NGA scheme. The new cohort of musicians will remain on the scheme from September 2022 till December 2024.
BBC Radio 3 has a new international line-up of New Generation Artists as it announces the names of the performers joining from four continents https://t.co/lA16PBukmM
— RadioToday UK (@RadioToday) May 23, 2022
24-year-old pianist McCreadie is one of Scotland’s most exciting young jazz artists. He stepped onto the music scene back in 2018 with his self-released debut trio album “Turas”. The trio consists of two other musicians: David Bowden on bass guitar and Stephen Henderson on drums. The album was shortlisted for cross-genre Scottish Album of the Year Award 2019. Jazz in Europe praised the album, saying, “Turas, which is named after the Scottish Gaelic word for journey, features eight original compositions by McCreadie reflecting his engagement with the Scottish landscape and musical traditions while also showing a firm grasp of the jazz piano tradition from McCoy Tyner to Esbjorn Svensson.”
McCreadie was born in Jamestown, but grew up in Dollar, Scotland. He graduated from Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly known as the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) in 2018. Since graduating, and releasing his debut album, McCreadie has gone on to win multiple awards, including, Best Instrumentalist title at the 2018 awards, Album of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2019 and Best Album at the Scottish Jazz Awards 2019. Now, McCreadie has achieved yet another win, by joining this years New Generation Artists scheme.
The scheme was launched in 1999 as part of BBC’s dedication to assist young artists in developing within the music world. The scheme offers the artists unique opportunities to develop their talents. This includes the opportunity to perform in concerts around the UK, record and make appearances with the BBC performing groups, perform at some of the UK’s most prominent festivals, partake in studio recordings for Radio 3 and perform at the BBC Proms.
The other New Generation Artists 2022-2024 are accordionist, Ryan Corbett from Scotland, countertenor, Hugh Cutting from England, cellist, Santiago Cañón-Valencia from Colombia, the Berlin-based Leonkoro Quartet, New Zealand-born violinist Geneva Lewis, and South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha.
