St Mary's Young Pianist and Young Musician of the Year Competition

St Mary’s School, Cambridge was honoured to receive a visit from Ruth Ehrlich, professional violinist and teacher earlier this week. Ruth came into school to judge the school’s two annual music competitions: Young Pianist of the Year and Young Musician of the Year – two events which celebrate the wealth of musical talent from across the school.  

Now in its eighth year, the piano competition took place on Tuesday 30 October. Students from Years 7 - 12 performed a range of repertoire from Baroque to Modern, each to a very high standard.

The Intermediate Class Shield was awarded to Year 10 student Isabella R-L for an expressive performance of Arabesque, Op. 6, No. 4 by Karganov. The Agnes Heron Memorial Cup (awarded annually to the girl in the Advanced Class who give the outstanding piano performance of the evening) was awarded jointly to students Mia R-B (a Year 11 student who is studying, amongst other things GCSE Music) and Annabelle B (a Year 12 Music Scholar who is currently studying A level Music alongside History, French and Mandarin Chinese). Mia played a dazzling Impromptu by Schubert whilst Annabelle performed Debussy’s beloved “La Cathédrale Engloutie”. Both students performed these pieces again for Ruth the following evening, and both also sang in the ‘Vocalist’ category. Annabelle offered a third performance (on violin) within the Strings category and Ruth, as well as many audience members, remarked how astonishing it was for one student to be performing at such a high level across three different instruments. Annabelle and Mia were competing against nine other advanced instrumentalists (most of whom were Grade 7 standard or higher). 

Ruth commented on how high the standard of musicianship was at St Mary’s and, awarded special commendations to the girls who she felt had given exceptional performances – Olivia B (flute) and Maryam G (voice). Maryam received a further commendation for her very fine viola playing. The overall winner of the competition was Annabelle B (piano) who Ruth felt performed even better than she had the previous evening. 

Our Director of Music, Emma Fisher said:

“We were delighted that Ruth was able to join us to adjudicate our Music competitions. Our department prides itself on the girls’ commitment to Music-making and students’ high levels of musicianship, and it was great for us that Ruth was able to witness this. I felt immensely proud of all the performers.” 

Congratulations to all who took part.