ROYAL OVER-SEAS LEAGUE - 62nd Annual Music Competition.
Saxophonist Huw Wiggin (Royal College of Music) has won the Gold Medal and £15,000 in prize money at the 62nd Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition.

The competition final took place on Tuesday 6 May 2014 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s South Bank Centre. The Chairman of the distinguished panel of judges was Gavin Henderson CBE, Principal of Central School of Speech and Drama. Prizes were presented by HRH Princess Alexandra, Vice Patron of the Royal Over-Seas League.

The other finalists, who each received £5,000 were: Jan Hugo piano (Istituto Superiore di Studi, Modena, Italy) Toby Hughes double bass (Royal Northern College of Music) and Anna Rajah soprano (Royal College of Music).

During the jury deliberations, performances were given by Block4 (Royal College of Music) and Solem Quartet (Royal Northern College of Music), winners of the Competition’s two ensemble awards of £10,000 each. James Sherlock piano (Guildhall School of Music) was awarded the Accompanists Prize of £5,000.

Huw Wiggin is only the second saxophonist in 62 years to win the Competition Gold Medal, the first was Amy Dickson in 2004. Other past saxophonist ROSL major prizewinners include John Harle (1980), Gerard McChrystal (1988), Sarah Markham (1995), and Sarah Field (2000).

Born in Reading in 1986, Huw Wiggin studied at Chethams School of Music and Royal Northern College of Music with Andrew Wilson and Rob Buckland. On graduating in 2008 with a 1st Class honours degree he won a scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) to continue his studies with Daniel Gauthier at the Hochschule für Musik, Köln. In 2012 he graduated from the Royal College of Music with Kyle Horch gaining a Masters with Distinction.

He is currently appearing at venues and music societies throughout the UK as a selected artist on the Countess of Munster Musical Trust recital scheme and as a winner of Making Music’s Philip and Dorothy Green Award. Other solo appearances include the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, St James’s Piccadilly, the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall, St Margaret’s Westminster and a performance of Milhaud’s Scaramouche at Henley Festival. He regularly performs recitals at sea on Cunard and P&O ships all over the world. In July 2012 Huw was invited to give recitals and a concerto performance of Eric Coates’s Saxo Rhapsody at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

The ROSL Annual Music Competition is open to citizens of the UK, Commonwealth and former Commonwealth countries under the age of 30. In 2014 over 400 musicians participated from Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, Hong Kong, Malta, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

NOTES TO EDITORS
Royal Over-Seas League

Patron   HM The Queen
Vice-Patron   HRH Princess Alexandra KG GCVO
President   The Rt Hon the Lord Luce KG GCVO DL

The Royal Over-Seas League (ROSL) is a not-for-profit Commonwealth membership organisation, founded in 1910 by Sir Evelyn Wrench and incorporated by Royal Charter. With historic clubhouses at prestigious locations in London and Edinburgh plus a network of reciprocal clubs and members groups in more than 80 countries around the world, ROSL fosters international friendship and understanding, as well as promoting the arts and supporting educational and welfare projects among young people of the Commonwealth.

The ROSL Annual Music Competition

60,000 annually for solo performers, accompanists and chamber ensembles. Past ROSL prizewinners make an impressive alumni of musicians of the highest calibre who have established prominent careers of the music profession. They include: Geoffrey Parsons piano (1953), Jacqueline du Pre (1961), John Lill piano (1963), Melvyn Tan harpsichord (1976), Barry Douglas piano (1979), Jean Rigby mezzo-soprano (1981), Piers Lane piano (1982), Susan Bullock soprano (1983), Malcolm Martineau piano (1984), Anthony Marwood (1985), Susan Chilcott soprano (1986), Janice Watson soprano (1987), Paul Lewis piano (1992), Jonathan Lemalu bass-baritone (2000), Lucy Crowe soprano (2002) and Amy Dickson saxophone (2004), Sean Shibe (2011) and Jayson Gillham piano (2012).

ROSL ARTS
ROSL ARTS offers many performance opportunities to prizewinners after the competition at major venues such as the Wigmore Hall and has established a relationship with many leading UK festivals including Brighton, Dartington International Summer School, Kings Lynn and the Lake District Summer Music Festival. ROSL ARTS own series of chamber music concerts at Over-Seas House, Edinburgh is a well established fixture of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Internationally ROSL ARTS has organised concerts and tours for prizewinners in Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Malta, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Princess Alexandra Hall, Over-Seas House where the ROSL Annual Music Competition auditions are held.

Royal Over-Seas League
Over-Seas House
Park Place, St James’s Street
London, SW1A 1LR
0207 408 0214 x 219
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