Music to our ears – young musicians perform at special recital
Eight talented young musicians took part in a special recital recently, the Music Service’s first in person performance in over two years.
The East Ayrshire Young Musician Recital was a wonderful opportunity for the young people who had participated in the inaugural Scottish Young Musician competition, organised by the Music Education Partnership Group (Scotland), to play to a live audience.
Due to the pandemic the competition, which took place earlier this year, had to take place online and was adjudicated by Alexander Davidson, Music Service Manager from Moray Council. The standard was extremely competitive and Mr Davidson had a very difficult task selecting the winners.
Charmaine from The Robert Burns Academy and Katie from Doon Academy were runners up with Emily from Stewarton Academy winning the competition. Emily represented East Ayrshire at the national final held in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland last week.
While the competition had taken place successfully online, the Music Service and the schools felt that a live performance would greatly benefit our young people and would give them an opportunity to shine.
At the recital, Pete from Stewarton Academy (guitar), Rona from Loudoun Academy (voice), David from Loudoun Academy (trumpet), Katie from Doon Academy (voice) sang, Matthew from Kilmarnock Academy (piano), Hannah from Grange Academy (voice), Charlie from Grange Academy (Baritone Horn) and Emily from Stewarton Academy (voice), entertained the gathered audience.
Linda McAulay-Griffiths, Chief Education Officer and Head of Education said: “It was wonderful to attend the East Ayrshire Young Musician Recital and to hear the incredible talent of our young people. The Scottish Young musician competition went really well online and our thanks must go to Alexander Davidson from Moray Council for adjudicating. I heard almost all of our young performers and I know he had an incredibly difficult task on his hands selecting a winner.
“For musicians, there is nothing like performing to a live audience so the Music Service, led by Julie Carrie, leapt at the chance of holding a recital to give our young people the opportunity to show what they can do and also to hone their performance skills.
“I really enjoyed meeting our young people and congratulating them all, especially our East Ayrshire winner Emily who very recently competed in the national final. She did really well in the final competition and while she didn’t place, Emily won two VIP tickets to the Hacienda Classical event at the Hydro this weekend. Sounds amazing!”