Friday evening provided excellent entertainment with the competitions for the Cyril Dashwood Piano Prize, the Pat Dixon Woodwind Prize and the Senior Brass Prize all taking part on the same evening. This resulted in a varied and highly entertaining evening of music at an extraordinarily high standard.
The piano competition featured some extremely difficult repertoire with Jamie playing Chopin’s ‘Scherzo in Bb Minor’ and Richard tackling Rachmaninov’s ‘Prelude in G Minor’. To have two musicians capable of playing at this level is exceptional and both rose to the challenge superbly. In the end our excellent adjudicator, Lorraine Wild gave the prize to Richard as she thought his performance was delivered with more authority and accuracy. In the Woodwind section we had a wonderful variety of styles. Alice performed James Rae’s toe tapping ’Duckin’ and Divin’ on alto saxophone while Raeph dextrously performed Rameau’s ‘Danse des Sauvages’ on bassoon from nearly 300 years earlier. The prize however went to Andrew for an atmospheric rendition of ‘Finale’ by Richard Rodney Bennett on alto saxophone.
The brass competition was perhaps the most closely contested with an extremely high standard reached by all competitors. Ralph’s performance of Larsson’s ‘Concertino’ was assured and featured dazzling tone colour and precise articulation while Rafe’s lyrical playing of the Gershwin classic ‘Embraceable You’ featured beautiful tone, precise articulation and delicate shaping of the melody. In the end this category was won by Patrick who delivered the 3rd movement of Elizabeth Raum’s ‘Concerto for Bass Trombone’ with great style and a thorough understanding of the music.
