College Musicians hit the high notes!

Published on isbi School News dated Thursday 26th of April 2018

Bishop’s Stortford College’s Music Department is celebrating once again. Recently two Sixth Form students have gain coveted awards and College musicians also gave excellent performances at the Rotary Young Musician of the Year Competition. On Thursday 22nd March, Sixth Form student Scott Hextall, was examined for the Associate of the Royal Schools of Music (ARSM) Performance Diploma. This intense and challenging qualification requires each candidate to prepare a 30 minute programme during which they are assessed on their musical communication skills, interpretation and technical delivery. The difficulty of this diploma surpasses that of a Grade 8 examination demanding an incredibly high level of musicianship and maturity. Scott gave an exceptional clarinet performance, earning him a distinction with a score of 47/50 (the ARSM rarely scores above 90%). An outstanding achievement. During the Easter break another of the College’s most prominent instrumentalists, Christopher Wilkin, successfully auditioned for a prestigious Music Scholarship at Imperial College, London. Chris auditioned on the cello performing Fauré’s Papillons and Shoshtakovich’s First Movement of the Cello Concerto; two very demanding pieces. Although Christopher will be studying Physics for his degree, this scholarship means he will be able to receive instrumental lessons at the Royal College of Music for the duration of his course. On Saturday 21st April, the College hosted the annual Rotary Young Musician of the Year Competition, featuring over 100 entries from pupils at various local schools including Bishop’s Stortford College. Across the five disciplines of Piano, Brass, Woodwind, Strings and Vocal, entrants were divided into three age groups; Junior, Intermediate and Senior. In the final round of the competition, 7 of the 15 finalists were from Bishop’s Stortford College; Ishani M, Lewis W and James D won the Piano, Strings and Brass Junior Categories respectively, whilst Emma H, Fifi D and Charlie E won the Piano, Vocal and Brass Intermediate categories. Performers in the Senior Category also displayed impressive musical qualities and technical control and although not the final winner, Scott Hextall played with great skill and musicality. Iago Núñez, Senior School Music Teacher commented, “Many congratulations to all the performers involved who helped make this such a wonderful celebration of music. We are looking forward to welcoming back Rotary International next year and to once more use this as a platform for our College musicians to compete and play with a wide variety of pupils from other schools.”