The Silver Clef Award is an annual music charity award event, founded in 1976 in the United Kingdom.[1][2][3]
Established by British music managers and artists, the Silver Clef fund-raising organization was founded to support all the charitable activities of the Nordoff-Robbins Centre for Music Therapy in London, United Kingdom. The award luncheon developed into a major charity auction event involving business and celebrities, as well as members of the British Royal family. In 1988, the concept was set up in the United States of America, as the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation Inc., based in New York University. The foundation held its first American Silver Clef Award Dinner and Auction in 1989, to fund a music therapy centre at the university.[4]
On 30 June 1990, a special free charity concert by past and present Silver Clef award winners, in aid of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre and the British Record Industry Trust's School for the Performing Arts and Technology, was held at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. The concert featured Eric Claption, Phil Collins, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Elton John, Mark Knopfler, Paul McCartney, Robert Plant, Cliff Richard, the Shadows, Status Quo, and Tears for Fears. It was recorded and later released as an album and video.
The award categories as of 2010 are:
Occasional awarded categories include: