Kim and Ruth MacCloskey RAMI Music Scholarship

Criteria

Applicants must:

- Be a college-bound student in Boone, Ogle or Winnebago County;
- Attend or plan to attend an accredited two- or four-year college/university;
- Be 19 years old or younger as of the application deadline;
- Have a minimum GPA of 2.5/4.0;
- Demonstrate an ongoing commitment to further their music education and to remain actively involved in their community through music; and
- Demonstrate financial need.
- Past recipients are not eligible to reapply.

Preference will be given to students who will attend a local school such as Rock Valley College, Rockford University or Northern Illinois University, and to candidates with a physical disability.

Specifications

A. One of the applicant’s two recommendations must be from a music teacher.
B. Applicant must submit a recording of a performance (see below).
C. Applicant’s essay must demonstrate his or her commitment to continued active involvement in school or community music groups.

The scholarship reviewers for the MacCloskey/RAMI Scholarship will accept most digital media formats, but prefer files in .aiff or .wav formats uploaded to Dropbox. Recordings made on a phone, tablet or laptop will not display applicants’ talents to the fullest. The loss of fidelity from compressing phone, tablet or laptop recordings into MP3 (or similar formats) makes it very difficult to gauge the skill level of the performer particularly on vocals or instruments like the piano, violin or cello.

Applicants must include the following information with their recording.

• Applicants should identify the name of the piece and the composer of each recording, especially if the recording was written or improvised by the applicant.
• If the recording includes more than one musical element (piano plus vocalist, vocal duet, ensemble performance, etc.) the applicant needs to indicate which voice or voices in the recording are theirs.

The recording is a significant part of the scholarship application process. If applicants are proficient on more than one instrument (including vocals), they may include multiple recorded tracks. The five minute time limit listed in the application is a guideline and going beyond the five minute time period will not be penalized.