Guitarist Jack Hancher drew in the audience and panel with an intimate programme of Britten and Dowland in the last solo section final of the 70th year of the ROSL Annual Music Competition.
British guitarist Jack Hancher became the fourth solo section final winner of the competition, taking home £5,000 and claiming the last of four spots in the Gold Medal Final, which this year will take place at Wigmore Hall on 7th July.
In the 70th year of the Royal Over-Seas League’s Annual Music Competition, four soloists competed in the solo strings final. Kryštof Kohout violin, Jack Hancher guitar, Madeleine Pickering violin and Toby Cook viola impressed the gathered audience of the Princess Alexandra Hall. The adjudicators Jo Cole, Fenella Humphreys, Ashok Klouda and Geoff Parkin had the tough job of choosing the winner and the soloist who will go onto compete for the Gold Medal and a further £15,000.
Jack Hancher completed his Master's in Performance at the Royal College of Music in 2018 where he studied with Gary Ryan and Chris Stell and won the RCM Guitar Award 2014 while still in his second year as an undergraduate. Jack has won prizes at the Zagreb Guitar Festival Competition, the Plovdiv GuitArt Festival Competition, earning him the place as a EuroStrings Artists for 2021, and has performed at guitar festivals across Europe. Jack has performed across Europe in venues including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, the Großer Ehrbar Saal, Vienna and the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, Turin.
With such exceptional talent onstage, the adjudicators decided to split the Len Lickorish Memorial Award of £1,000 between the three other finalists, Kryštof Kohout, Madeleine Pickering and Toby Cook.
You can catch up on all the action here:
Kryštof Kohout violin
Jack Hancher guitar
Madeleine Pickering violin
Toby Cook viola
ROSL Annual Music Competition Section Finals take place each Tuesday 7-9pm at Over-Seas House, Park Place, St James’s Street, London, SW1A 1LR.
You can book for the upcoming section finals here
