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Dorothy Wilson, Chair of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Performing Arts Fund, today announced that the Fund has now passed the £3m donation mark (£3,017,332).

The Fund has supported 739 individuals and around 6,000 members of 98 choirs since its inception in 2003 through a number of different schemes: The Education Bursary; Training in Musical Theatre; Instruments and Equipment Awards; Junior Instruments and Equipment Awards; and Urban Music and Choral Ambition.

Recipients include Adele Adkins (Instruments and Equipment), who was nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2008 in the best album category for her debut album 19. Her track Chasing Pavements went straight to No. 1 and the album also won four Grammy awards.

Wayne "Lotek" Bennett (Urban Music) produced the 2009 Mercury Music Prize-winning album Speech Therapy for artist Speech Debelle.

Several winners of the Fund's Musical Theatre Award are starring in musicals across the West End, including Dirty Dancing (Fra Fee), Mamma Mia (Nicola Hawkins and Nikki Bentley) and The Sound Of Music UK Tour (Zoe Doano).

Dorothy Wilson, Chair of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Performing Arts Fund, said:" I am delighted that the Fund has reached this remarkable landmark in its support of the country's most talented young performers. And I'm so proud that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Performing Arts Fund is the UK's biggest funder of Musical Theatre Training and development within the charitable sector."

Notes to Editors

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Performing Arts Fund helps aspiring music-makers and performers looking for a way to get ahead.

Our mission is to seek out and support excellent aspiring performers and those directly supporting performing artists who, for reasons of lack of existing opportunity, personal background or circumstance, would not have been able to achieve their most ambitious goals, or their talent's greatest potential without the Fund's support or intervention.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Performing Arts Fund is a registered charity, number 1101276.

The charity (formerly Fame Academy Bursary Trust) was set up in 2003 within the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

The Fund receives revenue from the voting lines of ´óÏó´«Ã½ One entertainment programmes that seek to find new performing talent (including Fame Academy, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Any Dream Will Do, I'd Do Anything and Over The Rainbow).

KT