Author Toni Morrison and her protege, Julia Leigh

Rolex provides emerging artists with what they need most: experience

Rolex, the Swiss watchmaker, recently inaugurated a new philanthropy: the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. This unique program gives five gifted young artists the opportunity to collaborate with contemporary masters. The disciplines covered are dance, literature, music, theater arts and visual arts.

Designed to fill a void in arts philanthropy, the initiative provides corporate funding for individual emerging artists. The aim, explains Patrick Heiniger, President and CEO of Rolex, is to ensure that "the world's artistic heritage is passed on personally, in the irreplaceable, time-honoured tradition of master and protégé."

The five mentors involved in this initiative are chosen for their artistic genius and their ability to nurture young talent. For the first cycle, the mentors are choreographer William Forsythe, conductor Sir Colin Davis, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, theater artist Robert Wilson and architect Álvaro Siza.

By giving young talents access to the experience of acclaimed masters, Rolex hopes to provide emerging artists with opportunities to grow creatively and to increase the young artists' understanding of the nuts and bolts of their profession. Mentors will spend at least 30 days with their protégés during the 12-month program.

The culmination of this relationship will be a gala ceremony during which the protégés will demonstrate how the mentors have helped to transform their lives. The young artists will then return to their home countries to perform or exhibit their works at public events, supported by local institutions and Rolex.

This year's protégés are: Josep Caballé-Domenech, a 29-year-old Spanish conductor; Sang Jijia, a 29-year-old Chinese dancer and choreographer; Julia Leigh, 32-year-old Australian novelist; Sahel al-Hiyari, 38-year-old Jordanian architect and painter; Federico León, 27-year-old Argentine theater and film director.

The protégés, chosen by a panel of arts professionals working anonymously, are unanimous in their enthusiasm. "I am prone now and then to disenchantment. For Toni Morrison to say 'keep going' will make a difference," said novelist Julia Leigh.

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