On Monday 23rd January 2023, 21 students competed in the Annan heat of the Rotary Young Musician of the Year competition, hosted by Annan & District Rotary Club at the Department of Expressive Arts at Annan Academy.
This is the first time the competition has been run since 2019 as a result of the covid pandemic, and an audience of enthusiastic parents, family and friend enjoyed wonderful and talented performances from students of the Academy, both vocal and across a range of instruments. In addition, there was a rousing performance of Coldplay’s “Sky Full of Stars” by Mr Boardman’s S1 Music group.
The competition was split into 3 groups – Junior Young Musician (S1 – 3), Young Musician (S4 – 6), and Young Singer (S1-6). An enormous amount of work went in to the preparation, rehearsal and organisation of the evening, with thanks expressed to Jamie Brand, Fiona Chapman and all the teachers from the Dept of Expressive Arts who helped by Rotarian Graham Simons who compered the evening.
In the Junior Young Musician section, Adam Vallance took third place playing “The Pink Panther” on tuned percussion. Second was Patrick Gora, playing “White Cockade” also on the tuned percussion, and first place went to Aela Ross who performed “Summer Song” on the Cello.
In the Young Musician section (S4-S6), third was Cody Mitchell, playing “Shark Soup” on the Piano, second Paris Matthew with “Czardina” on Tuned Percussion, and in first place was Matthew Petherick who gave an accomplished performance of “Page D’ Album” on the Piano.
Of the two Young Musician winners, Matthew Petherick now goes through to the next stage of the competition – The Rotary Young Musician Area heat – which will be held on 16th February, where he will compete with the local heat winners from Dalbeattie, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Langholm and Lockerbie.
Following the performance from the S1 music group, the Young Singer section of the competition took place and of the 10 competitors, third place was awarded to Abi Stitt, singing “Smell of Rebellion” from Matilda. Both second and first place competitors sang “There are Worse Things I Could Do” from Grease, with the performance from Freja Smith earing her second place, narrowly surpassed by the winner of this section, Hannah Robinson. Hannah also now goes through to the Area heat.
Adjudicator for the evening was Hannah Gill from Kirkcudbright Academy, and at the end of the evening prizes were presented to the winners by the President of Annan & District Rotary Club, Frances Willacy.
Photos –
Junior Musician (L to R), Adam Vallance, Frances Willacy, Aela Ross & Patrick Gora
Young Musician – Matthew Petherick, Frances Willacy & Paris Matthew
Young Singer – Freja Smith, Hannah Robinson, Frances Willacy and Abi Stitt.
