The country’s most prestigious national platform for young classical musicians is to be immediately discontinued.

The ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Award is to be axed, it has emerged today. In an email obtained by Limelight from Symphony Australia CEO Kate Lidbetter, it was revealed that the country’s most prestigious awards for young classical musicians will “not be continuing into the future.” The decision to discontinue the awards is in response to a major restructure of Symphony Australia’s activities, which will see the cessation of all national training programmes for emerging musicians from 2017.

Lidbetter’s email to Symphony Australia members reads, “For the past few years, Symphony Australia has managed the Young Performers Awards on behalf of its partner, the ABC. As a result of [the planned] changes, Symphony Australia will no longer be running the YPA and we have been informed by the ABC that it is also not in a position to re-assume responsibility for directly managing the competition.”

The changes to Symphony Australia’s services is allegedly in response to the increased development activity of its six member orchestras, which Symphony Australia claims has made many of the programmes it offers redundant.