NHEHS Musician of the Year - 2021 • Notting Hill & Ealing High School

NHEHS Musician of the Year – 2021

4 February 2021 | Share:

By Grace Kenyon, Year 12

On the 1st February 2021 the annual ‘Musician of the Year’ competition was aired on the NHEHS Music Department YouTube Channel. Unlike previous online concerts of this school year, performances were recorded from the players’ homes and then compiled into one video. This was in light of the current lockdown restrictions, meaning most of the usual process for the competition had to be altered to work around these new boundaries.

As usual, the competition was split into two parts: the juniors between years 7 to 9 of which there were 14 players, and then the seniors between years 10 to 13 of which there were 8. Following all 22 performances was the final judging and electing of commendations and winners. This year these prizes were adjudicated by a conductor who has worked with numerous orchestras and opera houses across Europe, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and currently the London Orchestra Project.

Playing in the competition this year was a new experience that brought about its own challenges aside from the actual performance, particularly in light of this new virtual aspect to the event. Arguably, one of the most contrasting aspects to this year’s competition was the absence of a live audience. With this in mind, we were given the opportunity to record multiple takes of our performances. For me, this was the trickiest aspect to the new system, as now we got to look back on our recordings and judge the best ones. This led to a seemingly never-ending number of takes that all had the potential to be better- it was difficult to stop!

Following the pre-recorded performances, performers, friends, family and staff were invited to a Google Meet link where our adjudicator gave individual feedback on each applicant. The session then ended in the final awards and commendations:

In the juniors we saw Poppy and Harriet get high commendations, with Dunya coming in 3rd, Kikuko in 2nd and finally Yuna in year 8 with 1st place, playing the beautifully emotive ‘Arabesque No.1’ by C.A. Debussy.

In the seniors, Rhea and Jaya received high commendations, with Ariella coming in 3rd, Shreya in 2nd and finally Grace with 1st place, playing ‘Konzert Op. 48 mvt. 1’ by D.Kabalevsky.

Well done to everyone who took part! Thank you so much to our adjudicator for his insightful comments on every performance. It was great to receive a different professional perspective.

Thank you Mr Janik and Ms Dunne for providing accompaniment for the performances; and thank you Ms Goodsell and Ms Le Brun for putting it all together!

To enjoy the winning performances, please see the YouTube link below this article.