Two Moors Festival Young Musician Competition winners announced

Earlier this year we held the first rounds of the Two Moors Festival Young Musician Competition Platform – open to students from all over the south-west – and last weekend we welcomed the finalists down to the very heart of Devon to hear them all play again and pick our four winners.

The standard has been higher than ever this year, equalling the standard seen in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in some cases. We had 63 entries from across the south-west, a record number for us which was absolutely fantastic as it just goes to show the level of interest in classical music among young people – even if it does mean we had to hold the first round of auditions on the Friday evening as well as Saturday and Sunday. Feeding that number of people is no easy task either (think lots of Coronation turkey!).

We took 21 musicians through to the second round, which was held on May 4th. The adjudicators were all very high powered – Philip Fowke, the renowned pianist who has frequently appeared at the Proms, Elizabeth Turnbull, viola player and very well-known oboist Melanie Ragge.

After hearing some seriously fantastic music, we are very pleased to announce that the four winners this year are:

Flautist Victoria Creighton from Wells, aged 15
Marimba player Alexandra Smith from Millfield, aged 15
Violinist Jin-Wook Suk from Millfield, aged 17
Violinist Anna Im from Millfield, aged 15

Both violinists were quite extraordinary and could grace any international concert hall anywhere already. Jin-Wook stunned the adjudicators with performance of part of the second movement of Sibelius’ violin concerto, Anna Im likewise with her rendition of Bruch’s violin concerto (third movement), Victoria’s Bach G minor flute sonata was crystal clear and Alexandra’s playing was just so super clean, demonstrating huge natural musical aptitude.

Look out for all four of these outstanding musicians at the Two Moors Festival’s main two-week event in October!

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