Last night we had our final solo Section Final for this year's Annual Music Competition, and this week it was the turn of the pianists. For the second week we had five extraordinary young musicians vying for the chance to win £5,000 and a place in our Gold Medal Final.
The evening began with Ashok Gupta performing a programme of Debussy, Scarlatti and Libermann’s Nocturne No. 8. Following, was Kausikan Rajeshkumar, performing two of his own compositions Mirage and Perpetuum, as well as Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff. Closing the first half of the evening was Bradley Wood, a former ROSL/Pettman Chamber Music Scholarship recipient, who performed the whole of Beethoven’s Sonata in A-flat Major, No.31.
Following the interval we had Romanian/British pianist Florian Mitrea, who performed a programme including movements from Debussy’s Preludes and Prokofiev’s Sonata No.3 in A Minor. Closing the evening was Jonathan Ferrucci who performed a contrasting programme of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor, followed by Ravel’s Menuet and Toccata from Le tombeau de Couperin.
Following a lengthy deliberation our judges announced Ashok Gupta as the winner of the Kerr Memorial Prize for a Young Pianist of Promise, and declared Florian Mitrea the overall Section Final winner. Florian will join Emmanuel, Michael, and Jonathan to complete our Gold Medal Final line-up at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 4 June.
With the two Ensembles categories to go, as well as the Overseas Final, there’s still time to book your tickets for the last few concerts of our Annual Music Competition. Tickets are available here.
