Since 2003, Sparebank 1 SMN has awarded talent grants and more than 500 young talents have received over NOK 15 million over the past 20 years. Now they present this year’s winners.
From Ålesund, writer Benedikte Ytterli, disc golfer Thomas Helgesen and musicians Jakob Sewrin and Live Hanken were selected. Together with 36 other recipients in central Norway, they received this year’s talent grant from a total of 500 applicants. The 40 share two million NOK so that each individual receives NOK 50,000.
– We are incredibly proud that we have talented representatives for our region, says bank manager at SpareBank 1 SMN, Jonas Ingebrigtsen.
The applicants were carefully assessed by professional juries within the categories art and culture, sport and entrepreneurship (read the jury’s reasoning at the bottom of the case).
– There has been sky-high competition, and there is no doubt a lot of talented talent in central Norway. It must be fair to say that it is extra great that four of the winners are from Ålesund. We are incredibly proud that we have such talented representatives for our city and region, says Jonas Ingebrigtsen.
Must travel to tournaments
Thomas Helgesen is thus one of four local winners of the scholarship. And for the 18-year-old, who is still in upper secondary school, the award means a lot.
– It means a lot to me, because I want to be very good and go far in disc golf. Since I’m a student, I don’t have the opportunity to earn that much, so the money comes in very handy. I am unable to finance even the trips I want to take. I want to compete internationally at the highest level, and with this scholarship, I get that opportunity.
– The way it looks now, it will be traveling to Belgium, a couple of trips to Sweden, maybe Finland and Denmark, he adds.
Just getting outside the national borders has everything to say if the 18-year-old is going to be able to make a living from his sport.
– It is absolutely crucial. Because I have to go out to get a clue as to what level I have to rise to in order to be at the top. I also want to get a well-known name so that record producers and others will support my venture, finance the trips and eventually pay my salary. I can’t be discovered in Norway, so I have to travel abroad, says Helgesen.
Goal of winning the NM
He has put in a lot of work in recent years to be able to achieve his goals.
– I am relatively new to the sport since I have only been playing for three and a half years. But I have trained and played so much that people say I still have ten years of experience. The weather at Sunnmøre unfortunately limits the opportunities to train on the pitches, but on average I train for two to three hours every day. I have equipment in the garden, so there will be many hours there, says Helgesen, who plays for Langevåg IL disc golf.
– The goal now is to become Norwegian champion. Øyvind Jarnes, who has won the last three years, comes from the same club as me. I’m getting closer and closer to his level, so it would have been nice to have gone all the way to the top in the NM. And so I can boast that we have an incredibly good environment in the club and a fantastic pitch. It clearly helps me achieve my goals, he adds.
Two of the bank’s financial advisers, Nicholas Slinning and Marthe Jansen, had the honor of presenting the talent scholarship to Helgesen.
– The jury has no easy task, because there are many good candidates and the eye of the needle is very narrow. So it’s incredibly nice to be promised to hand out the scholarship. Many are students like Thomas, and we hope that it can help motivate and inspire further investment, says Slinning.
– We are very proud to award the talent grants. We have a social mission at the bank and it is incredibly nice to be able to give the talents in the area an opportunity to invest even more in what they are doing, says Jansen.
The jury’s reasoning
The goal of the talent grant is to promote, develop and inspire local talent from central Norway, and to make an additional contribution to enable them to achieve their goals. A common denominator for talent winners is that they have the ability to make a difference, they dare to try where others might want to give up, and they want to contribute positively to the region they are from.
Benedikte Ytterli (26)
Benedikte is a young and fearless writer who grew up in Ålesund. Throughout her upbringing and transition from youth to adulthood in Trondheim, she has never stopped writing. Poetry has always been part of her identity, and her way of expressing herself. She has had fiction texts in print, and she has contributed several poems to Litterært Kollektiv’s BLAFF series, where one of them was read aloud and accompanied to music during Culture Night 2020. The scholarship will help make it possible to complete the manuscript she working with, as the goal is to publish a book.
The jury’s reasoning:
Benedikte wants to contribute to the literary environment in the region by being a voice for central Norwegian writers. She will tackle topics that really need to be illuminated.
Live Hanken (21)
Live has played guitar and sung all his life, and in recent years has written his own songs and held concerts with his own material. She was accepted as a student at Norway’s Academy of Music, where distinctiveness in own compositions and talent are criteria for admission. The long-term goal is to make a living from music by continuing to release my own music and develop myself as a producer, preferably in collaboration with others. She wants to develop her live music and has a goal of performing her own music on the Rockefeller stage in Oslo. The scholarship is to be used for recordings and releases of own music.
The jury’s reasoning:
Live has an exciting expression in her music, where she works with effects on both vocals and guitar. In the music, close elements meet big sounds, with acoustic and electronic features, within a pop format. In a short time, she has entered stages as a chorister for several well-known artists. We hope the talent grant will give her inspiration for further investment.
Jakob Sewerin (19)
Jakob has a great passion for music, and since he was 7 years old has played the French horn and is today an active horn player, guitarist and vocalist. He plays in the symphony orchestra in Ålesund and in his own band, and has produced his own works at a young age. He received the dream grant in 2020 and a culture grant from the Kjell Holms foundation in 2022. He has also contributed as an organizer and songwriter to musicals for Ålesund Culture School. He dreams of developing as an artist himself at the same time as he wants to produce works for others. In the long run, he will create more works suitable for bands, symphonic instruments and big bands as well as pop bands. He wants to develop to a level where this can become his livelihood and create more jobs. The grant will be used to purchase a Fender jazz bass, in order to produce a desired sound image when the works are produced.
The jury’s reasoning:
Jakob is a talent who at a young age has already contributed as a composer and arranger and has ambitions to create more jobs, through his own career as an artist and by contributing works for others.
Thomas Helgesen (18)
Thomas is a student at upper secondary school and works actively and purposefully with both school and disc golf. He started with disc golf in 2020 and since then has managed to become the fifth best ranked junior in Norway. He has won most of the junior tournaments he has participated in and currently holds the Norwegian record for distance throw (174.8 m). His goal is to become Norwegian champion within a few years, and then assert himself in international tournaments.
The jury’s reasoning:
Thomas is a young athlete who has already managed to make a name for himself within a new and rapidly growing sport. He has great talent and through hard and systematic work he has good speed towards reaching his very ambitious goals. In addition to his own investment, he has been involved in the operation and development of his own club and contributes, among other things, with the recruitment and training of new athletes as well as the operation and maintenance of the facility. We hope the scholarship will help him realize his dreams.
Bypatrioten’s Cultural Calendar
