I caught the Windwood final of BBC Young Musician on Friday evening. The competition has been televised over the last few weeks. The Wind final was particularly interesting  due to the fact that the five finalists (pictured above) played all different instruments; Recorder, Clarinet, Saxophone, Flute and Bassoon. The standard was also unusually high making the final decision a tough one.

Each finalist presented an array of composers including works by J.S.Bach, Castello, Marcello, Brahms, Giampieri, Rimsky-Korsakov, Taffanel, Burton, Maurice, Tansman, and Linde. Quite an electic mix but definitely something for everyone to enjoy.

The flautist, Luke O’Toole gave a spellbinding performance finishing with a virtuosic romp through the Fantaisie Sur Le ‘Freischutz’ by Taffanel, proving himself to be a highly acomplished performer and indeed I suspected, the winner. I really enjoyed the Bassoonist, Charlotte Cox, who crammed four different works into her 20 minute recital bravely finishing with Rimsky- Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee.

The winner was Charlotte Barbour-Condini, a Recorder player. I thoroughly enjoyed her performance which fully demonstrated ample technical and  musical ablity coupled with beautiful tone production. She gave a captivating account of Trotto, an anonymous medieval piece, which was delivered with panache and was  accompanied by percussion.  However, I didn’t expect the jury to pick a Recorder player! It made history too as a Recorder player has never previously been selected to play in a BBC Young Musician Semi-Final.

Publications

Melanie Spanswick has written and published a wide range of courses, anthologies, examination syllabuses, and text books, including Play it again: PIANO (published by Schott Music). This best-selling graded, progressive piano course contains a large selection of repertoire featuring a huge array of styles and genres, with copious practice tips and suggestions for every piece.

For more information, please visit the publications page, here.