ROTARY YOUNG MUSICIAN COMP. 2017/18
Tuesday 7th November 2017 saw our local heat of the Rotary Young Musicians Competition. The event was attended by the Mayor of Epsom and Ewell Cllr Liz Frost and she was joined by members of Epsom Rotary Club and parents. The event was again hosted by Epsom College who we thank for allowing us to use their excellent facilities. We also thank Paul Johnson-Hyde, the college’s Acting Director of Music, for all his help and Gill Ford from the College who accompanied 8 of the competitors on the piano, a task that must go beyond the normal call of duty.
Our local competition is the first of four stages ending in the National Final. The competition is designed to support and encourage the development of musical talent and aims to offer young people the experience of performing on a public stage, an opportunity to showcase their musical talent and to receive impartial feedback and assessment of their performance by experienced adjudicators.
We were delighted to welcome back our three adjudicators. These were Karl Nicholas, who acted again as chair, Anne Woolf - Skinner who has been for many years a music teacher and Carmen Lasok who is an international soprano. They had the mammoth task of picking first and second places from both the 5 instrumentalists and 4 vocalists.
The successful instrumentalists were Teddy Humphrey who came first playing the saxophone and Dominic Nong who was placed second playing the piano. The successful vocalists were Jasmine Bingham who was placed first and Lara Watson who came second. Everyone who attended agreed that we had been treated to an excellent range of music of a very high standard from all the competitors. The four competitors placed first and second will now go forward to the Rotary District final which will be held early next year.
Bob Frisby