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Brent
Young Musician of the Year 2008
The finals of ‘Brent Young Musician of the
Year 2008’, organised by Brent Music Service, saw an exciting end to this years competition.
From the 40 plus auditions in January, the finalists were
selected and six outstanding performances from Brent’s finest musical
youth were enjoyed by a highly supportive and enthusiastic audience at Claremont High School on the evening of Tuesday 4th
March.
With so many musical and technically impressive performances to
judge, the highly qualified musicians who made up the judging panel were
left with an unenviable challenge to make their final decisions.
 David
Wong - Winner
After
very encouraging and congratulatory comments to all the competitors, the
adjudicators’ decisions were announced awarding David Wong of
Westminster School the title of ‘Brent Young Musician of the Year
2008’ for his engaging clarinet performance of Debussy’s ‘Premiere
Rhapsodie’, accompanied by Anna Mitchell on piano.
Other
Prize Winners
Second
place was awarded to Lizzie Tocknell of The Henrietta Barnett School for
her fantastic French horn rendition of Franz Strauss’s ‘Theme &
Variations’ (accompanied on piano by her mother Claire Tocknell) and
third place went to Filipa Bragança of Claremont High School for her
impressive vocal performances of ‘Voi Che Sapete’, ‘Sure on this
Shining Night’ and ‘On My Own’ (accompanied on piano by Roger
Williams).
The
Prizes
The prize winners share the £800 prize fund (provided from the support of the
Wembley Charitable Foundation) to help towards their future musical
development.
The winner,
David Wong, also enjoys the award of The Len Williams Memorial Trophy
and the opportunity to perform as the guest soloist at the forthcoming
Brent Music Service initiative - Brent Makes Music 2008 - at Wembley
Arena on
2nd July 2008.
 David
Wong
A
former student of Brent Music Service, David
Wong took up the clarinet at the age of 8.
A mere 6 years later he can be proud of already having achieved
Grade 8 (Distinction) on this instrument and a host of memorable solo
performances which include St John’s Smith Square Hall and a charity
concert at the Hilton Hotel in aid of the Tsunami victims.
His musicianship has also expanded to Violin and Piano for which
he holds Grade 8 in each and Saxophone for which he has reached Grade 7.
His musical inspirations include clarinettist Professor Karl Leister and
when asked what his musical ambitions were, his honest reply was “Too
early to say really, but at the moment I just want to enjoy making
excellent music”.
The
Adjudicators
The
adjudicators were made up of Sarah Crisp (professional violinist and
teacher), Terry Gardner (professional trombonist and Flight Sergeant of
the RAF Central Band) and Jagdeep Singh Sehra (professional singer,
tabla and dhol player and teacher).
In the their closing statements they confirmed that all
the finalists had displayed outstanding musical talent and unanimously
congratulated all the competitors for their performances.
 The
Other Finalists
In addition to the placed competitors,
Jayesh Bhudia, a Tabla
player from Queens Park Community School, gave a spellbinding
performance of his own composition, Revathy Selvarajah, a Veena player
from Claremont High School offered a riveting performance of Kriti
(accompanied on drum by Aran) and Yuval Shalson, a Flautist from JFS,
gave two beautiful performances of Mozart’s concerto No 2 in D (mvt 2)
and ‘Andalouse’ by Pessard (accompanied on piano by Rosemary
Wiseman).
Comments from Brent Music
Service
Paul Fensom, Head of Brent Music Service, commented “This has been
a fantastic competition and with over 40 entrants auditioning at the
beginning, these six young musicians are a credit to themselves and the
musical teaching support they have received to reach the finals.
It is living proof of the extremely talented young musicians that
are part of the
London
Borough of Brent and part of what the Brent Music Service aspires to
offer all its youngsters.
Deputy
Head of Service, Eric Angus concluded:
“It
has been an amazing night and really they are all winners, even the
early audition-stage entrants who didn’t get as far as the finals –
anyone who can step on to a stage and make music has already discovered
the enjoyment music can bring – a prize worth having in itself!”.
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A Brent
Council Service