Congratulations to Tom Gortler who was recently chosen as the winner of 2016’s ACM BASCA Scholarship. Tom will have his entire course fees funded to enable him to complete the Songwriting and Artist Development degree debt free.
“It feels amazing, firstly I want to say well done to the other two contestants Anya and Autumn… I’m over the moon to be even considered, just getting to the final three was enough for me let alone win it so thank you so much to the judges, ACM and everyone from BASCA for putting it on.”
Tom Gortler, BASCA Scholarship Winner 2016
Tom was chosen from three finalists after performing in front of a select panel of industry judges at the annual BASCA Summer Party. Runners-up included talented students Anya Lang and Autumn Caveney who both gave impeccable performances and set the bar very high. Each finalist performed a song of their own creation and the competition was steep.
“The reason we chose Tom’s song was because it was actually the most formulated, it was so catchy – it was like an earworm! They were all great songs, all three of them were great but his song did have the edge, so it got my vote and it was a really great evening.”
Rita Campbell, BASCA
“I agree with Rita that all three performances were really very accomplished and Autumn has to be congratulated for never having performed in public before, I don’t think she’d even played in front of her family so that took a lot of courage to stand up in front of industry professionals and perform in this way, it’s really quite amazing. And I would agree that Tom had the best formed song, verse, chorus and a catchy chorus – ultimately it went to Tom, but it was by no means an easy decision, everyone did fantastically well.”
Tim Fraser, BASCA