Pink Floyd Guitar Fetches £33,000 For Charity

Pink Floyd's David Gilmour tries out the guitar, shortly after signing it. ©Photo by Gemma Fleet

This year, the annual Silver Clef Awards, sponsored by O2 were held in the grand surroundings of the London Hilton ballroom in Park Lane. The event raised an impressive £480,000 for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, and was attended by Foo Fighters, The Eagles, Kaiser Chiefs, Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne and Brian May, amongst others

Proceedings began with an awards ceremony. Among the highlights were Brian May presenting an Award to Foo Fighters, Peter Hook from New Order presenting a gong to Kaiser Chiefs, and Editors bagging an award for ‘Best New Music’. The main award of the evening went to The Eagles, who were presented with the honorary Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Lifetime Achievement Award by vocalist Paul Carrack. The Hard Rock Silver Clef Award was presented to Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne, who had visited the Nordoff-Robbins centre in Kentish Town, London that week to witness the excellent work of the charity.

The second part of the event was a charity auction, which saw a number of great lots going up for sale, including a limited
edition, signed Sir Peter Blake print featuring The Beatles plus another of Elvis Presley. The single highest bid of the
auction however, was £33,000 (€48,226.57 / $60,208.75), which ensured that one lucky bidder won a Stratocaster® guitar signed by David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright. As well as being signed, the body of the guitar was custom painted using the iconic 'prism' logo from Pink Floyd's classic 1972 album, Dark Side Of The Moon, which is still the best-selling rock album of all time.

The guitar's body, signed by the musicians. ©Photo by Gemma Fleet

Fender Europe's Jamie Crompton, who arranged for the guitar to be created in conjunction with UK custom paint artist Martin Sims (and who also got the musicians to sign it), said "I have been involved with Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy for a few years now since being introduced to the charity in 2003. It is a real pleasure to work with such committed people from the fundraisers to the therapists themselves. It's great to see how the effects of music, when used in therapy, can enable communication for children and adults with a wide range of needs."

A spokesman for Nordoff-Robbins said "Emotional, cognitive and developmental needs can be addressed through interactive music-making within a secure relationship offered by the music therapist. Intimate connections with music can remain despite disability or illness, and are not dependent on a musical training or background. As well as funding important research money raised from these events helps to cover costs of 30,000 music therapy sessions in the UK each year. The charity & organizers of the Silver Clef Lunch very much appreciate Fender Europe’s contributions".

The auction contributed £210,000 to the evening's total. The Silver Clef Awards are always always one of the highlights of the U.K. music industry, and this year's get-together was attended by many of the main players in the business.

Fender Europe is a supporter of Nordoff-Robbins, and previously raised over £200,000 for the charity by staging 2004’s Strat Pack Concert in London. Each year we have donated guitars signed by legendary artists, and this year was no exception! We would like to thank David Gilmour and everyone else involved in making this event so successful.

If you want to find out more about Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, check out their official website.