Young Musician Competition District 1070 Final, 2024

Rotary Young Musician District finals took place at the Dixie Grammar School Sunday Feb 11th. Competitors entered Junior, Intermediate or Senior sections.

This year's District Young Musician final was hosted by Market Bosworth Rotary Club.

Competitors came from as far afield as Ashby, Lutterworth, Melton Mowbray and Towcester. Performers included a saxophonist, a trumpeter, a Rock guitarist, many singers and, would you believe it, two harpists! How do you pick a winner from a mix such as that?

Claire Ashdown, one of the organising team explained the difficulty in arranging a widely contrasting programme “The harpists were in different age groups and were, in both cases, simply sublime. Our job was to balance the playing order with the contrasting instruments. The singers were in their own category and presented no such problems”.

Registration was delayed to allow the more distant travellers to arrive at a leisurely pace. “Better to have them turn up relaxed, than stressing about getting there on time. If any of the performers were tense, it certainly didn’t show. There were many extremely polished and outstanding performances”, said Claire, this year’s president of the Bosworth Club.

As always, choosing the overall winners for the judges Julia Timms and Michael Enscot was no easy task and several of the entrants would have been at home in the upcoming Regional competition, which is always of an extremely high standard.

Winners of the various sections:

Junior Instrumental Solo 6-10 Years: EFFIE BOWMAN – HARP (Ashby)

Junior Vocal Solo 6-10 Years: EFFIE BOWMAN (Ashby)

Intermediate Instrumental Solo 11-13 Years: SUZANNE ISELIN – ALTO SAX (Ashby)

Intermediate Vocal Solo 11-13 Years: BELLA BERVILLE (Melton)

Senior Instrumentalist 14-17 Years: SOPHIE COSTA – HARP (Lutterworth Wycliffe)

Senior Vocalist 14-17 Years: HEIDI WILBOURN. (Melton Mowbray)

Judges Mike and Julia were much enthused when we asked them to be involved. Julia, from Bosworth said “The Rotary Club Young Musician Competition is a wonderful opportunity for young musicians to gain performance experience in a safe and welcoming environment. There were some exciting and inspirational performances in which competitors performed a wide range of musical genres, demonstrating a high standard of musicianship in both instrumental and vocal sections”.

A last word from Claire “ We planned for this as thoroughly as we possibly could. The overall winners will now go onto the Regional Cluster Finals on the 17th March, which will be held at the Dixie Grammar School. I’m delighted to say that the event went very smoothly, we even managed to raise £150 for local charities, thanks to Tania Sharp, our cake maker supreme!”

Photography courtesy Rotarian David Pearson