"Something to say and a story to tell" - our Young Musicians share their experiences

By Chris Billingham 

One of the reasons I am so proud to be connected to Southern Sinfonia is our commitment to nurturing young musicians and helping them develop their musicality. This is achieved through numerous education projects and the Newbury Young Musician of the Year competition, which is now open once more and accepting applications for the 2014 competition. The competition is for musicians aged 15-19 living or studying within 30 miles of Newbury Town Hall. First prize is a substantial cheque and the chance to play with Southern Sinfonia; the winners of the most recent competition, Drew Steanson and Emmanuel Bach, recently experienced this thrill when they performed in our October concert ‘The romance of Brahms meets Britain’s Britten’. 

Drew and Emmanuel mesmerised the audience with the first movement of Britten’s Piano Concerto and second movement of his Violin Concerto respectively. As many readers will know, these pieces are not particularly easy to perform, the constant tempo changes and pace requiring concentration and synchronicity with the orchestra. 

So why would any young musician take this on? Perhaps it’s because, as Drew explains, the opportunity to perform with an orchestra allows you new experiences and ultimately to learn new skills; “When the orchestra is there, you have to follow them as much as they are following you and that’s always difficult and challenging.” 

Opportunities to put these skills into practice are not as available to young musicians as they should be, especially with the suggested reduction of music lessons in schools. As Emmanuel explains, “music is so essential to one’s development because it encompasses a lot of skills that one might not have the chance to develop, and it’s something that can help develop so much. It’s about playing together, it’s about interactivity”. His thoughts are echoed by Drew: “certainly, everyone should be given an opportunity in an ideal world to play a classical instrument and engage with arts, there’s a focus on academia and getting the best grades, but that leaves out the enjoyment of classical music.” 

It is this enjoyment of classical music that has led to Southern Sinfonia ensuring that a concert performance is part of the prize for Newbury Young Musician of the Year. Competitions are a fantastic way to showcase skills and progress your career but they cannot compare to a concert. Drew feels that when auditioning or taking part in competitions, a performer is “playing for someone who is checking you’re getting it right, whereas to have the opportunity to play in a concert with Southern Sinfonia is really valuable. Music is for people; in competitions one is often put up, you’re compared to fellow musicians and students, whereas in a concert the audience is there just to hear how you play and hear your enjoyment of the playing, not what you can do, not what you can’t do.” In addition, as Emmanuel explains, his “highlight of the evening would actually be bringing those pieces to an audience who might not have heard them before and might not hear them that often again”. 

To make a connection with an audience, the performer has to give a performance of which to be proud. Emmanuel would advise young musicians to “learn the concerto as well as possible but, more than that, learn all the music, don’t just learn your part in exclusion. Really feel that your part is in a dialogue with what the orchestra are doing; not separate, it’s all connected and that’s very different to working on a solo piece. Really get a feel for that dialogue, be yourself and find out what you want to say based on what the composer has written. It’s about understanding the music, understanding the meaning and knowing how you can best bring that meaning to life to the audience through the performance. Ultimately it’s about having something to say and a story to tell”. 


Southern Sinfonia can’t wait to find out what stories this year’s entrants want to tell; it is so rewarding for us to see such passion in young performers. It’s also great to know that Drew and Emmanuel took so much from their recent performances with the orchestra, with Drew stating; “I don’t think many students around the world get an opportunity to play with an orchestra as fine as that” and Emmanuel suggesting that “it would be a great pleasure to work with the orchestra again” as they made him feel that he “was one of them and part of what they do”. 

You can see Drew perform on Saturday, 7th December in St Nicolas Church, Newbury as part of the MacMillan Charity Concert. Emmanuel will be giving a lunchtime recital at Queen Anne's School, in Caversham, Reading on Friday 7th March at 1pm. He will also be performing a recital in St Michael's Church on the Northgate, in Oxford (Monday 10th March, 1pm) and performing Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Surrey Mozart Players, at the Electric Theatre, Guildford on Saturday 29th March, 7.30pm. 

To find out more about this year's Newbury Young Musician of the Year, click here. 

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