Swanage & Purbeck Rotary CIO is delighted to announce the winners of its Young Musician competition. Open to all music genres, entries included a funky violin piece “Mr Kool”, a lively piano solo “Struttin’at the Waldorf”, songs from West Side Story and Les Miserables, and the winning performance from Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor. The competition was held online for the first time due to the Covid restrictions. 14 dedicated young musicians aged 8 – 18 years recorded their pieces and then uploaded them for the adjudicators to review. The whole process was masterminded by Tim Arnold.
To celebrate their achievement, a compilation video of all the entries at local level was played via Zoom to Rotary members, participants and their parents and teachers. It is hoped that certificates will be presented in person to all participants at a celebration evening in July, at which the main winners have been invited to perform.
The winners were as follows:
KS 1-2 – INSTRUMENTAL
1st Suzanne Lejeune – piano
2nd Alfie Yew – piano
3rd Rory Kerins – violin
Highly commended – Lily Fawcett, Lily Harris, Rosie Kent and Alvin Yew
KS 3-5 – INSTRUMENTAL
1st Sally Aiko Dando – violin
2nd Nick Aiko Dando – piano
3rd Oscar Brady – piano
KS 3-5 – VOICE
1st Olivia Marcus
2nd Reuben Marcus
Sally and Nicholas were invited to go forward to the Rotary Wessex District level of the competition, and we’re delighted to announce that Sally not only won her Instrumental Class but was judged Overall Wessex District Winner too! She will now go forward to the Regional round, to be judged in June. President-Elect, Chris le Fevre, presented Sally with her District prize and certificate at Swanage Bandstand. (photos attached). Unfortunately, it was too wet for Sally to bring her violin. Sally is very excited to have been selected to compete in the next round of the Rotary Young Musician Competition 2021 and to have got a place to study violin at the Royal College of Music in September. “I’m hoping this will open doors in the future for me to one day become a professional orchestral player. After I finish college, I would like to have the opportunity to travel and give poorer communities the chance to appreciate music as I have.”
Congratulations to all the competitors for their enthusiasm and commitment during these tricky times!
Grateful thanks go, of course, to Tim for his hard work in ensuring that the competition could take place at all, to Rotarian Hilary Thraves, Swanage Rotary’s Youth Committee Chair, to our adjudicator Dilys Thomas and to all the children and their families who took part in the event and enabled us to run it despite everything that’s going on.