On Monday 9 November four of AYM’s 2015 Award winners performed to an invited audience of more than 100 AYM Angels and other supporters in the beautiful surroundings of London’s Charterhouse.  The Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery to the north of what is now Charterhouse Square. Since the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century the house has served as private mansion, a boys’ school and an almshouse which it remains to this day.  Within the complex lies a Great Chamber, where both Elizabeth I and James I held council meetings in the 16th Century, and this was where our concert took place.

Performing live is the lifeblood of a musician and as part of our support to our Award winners we arrange high profile live performance opportunities across the UK.  This event formed part of our Brilliante concert series, which benefit our young musicians and help us to raise our profile and awareness of the importance and impact of our work.  Funds raised from the evening went towards our Ambition 1000 campaign.

We were delighted that our fabulous volunteer photographer, Edward Webb, was able to join us to document our young musicians in rehearsal during the afternoon.  Some of his photos can be seen below.

The concert was introduced by renowned conductor Charles Hazelwood who spoke about the importance of helping young talent through supporting the work of AYM.

“AYM is amazing at seeking out those children where there’s a spark to identify, nurture and uphold it.”

Our performers were (Rob (16) saxophone, Elodie (16) violin, Nathan (12) clarinet and Laura (16) piano.  With support from AYM’s volunteer events programmer, Julia Roth, each young musician had prepared 10 minutes of repertoire.

First on the bill was Rob who performed Robert Planel’s Prelude and Saltarelle.  Coming from a non-musical family Rob discovered his passion for music through an inspirational primary school teacher and has busked from the age of 11 to help fund his music making.  AYM is supporting Rob with the costs of his jazz saxophone lessons and this concert couldn’t have come at a better time as Rob had recently learned he’d made it through to the category auditions for BBC Young Musician 2016. After his performance Rob’s father addressed the audience and spoke about the joy, challenges and costs of supporting a musically talented child.

Next up was Elodie who performed Henryk Wieniawski’s Polonaise in D major. First supported by AYM at the age of 7 Elodie went on to gain a place at Chetham’s School of Music.  She recently returned home to Essex so that she could study with a professor at Royal College of Music and has been making the most of opportunities offered by AYM in London – “every week an email seems to come through from AYM offering rehearsal tickets, masterclasses – it’s amazing!”  Shortly after performing at The Charterhouse Elodie learned that she had been offered a place in the 2016 National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain – along with 14 other AYM Awards winners.

“I really enjoyed the evening and it was lovely to meet the other musicians as well as performing in such a wonderful hall.” – Elodie

Third on the programme was Nathan, our youngest musician, who performed the first movement of Bernhard Crusell’s Clarinet Concerto No.1. Nathan’s first musical inspiration was watching a musician on Britain’s Got Talent. He’s made huge leaps and bounds since starting the clarinet age six (he’s current principal clarinet in the under 12s NCO) and AYM have been supporting him for three years.  This year Nathan won our Edith Hemingway Memorial Award for the best young musician from the North West of England, which helped him buy an A clarinet. You can read more about Nathan’s story here.  

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to play the Crusell. I really do love the piece and I am so pleased that I have now performed it publicly and that the audience enjoyed it too” – Nathan

Last up was Laura who performed, with great intensity, the first five of Frédéric Chopin’s Preludes.  Laura is currently studying for her A levels on a scholarship at Wycombe Abbey School, a long way from her family in Scotland, and attends the Royal College of Music every Saturday.  As well as her passion for piano Laura is a keen composer. Just before the concert she learned that she had been chosen as one of the Composers for the National Youth Orchestra! You can read more about Laura and the other NYO composers on the orchestra’s website.

“It was such a pleasure to play last night – I haven’t enjoyed a concert as much as that for a long time, listening or playing, and I had such a lovely evening talking afterwards” – Laura

Our next Brilliante Concert will be in May 2016 at The Stone House, London. Find out more about this and other events here.

“At these concerts young musicians perform to a new and unknown audience, which can be quite intimidating: this makes for a very different experience from the school concerts and festivals which comprise most of their performances. By doing this we offer them the ultimate joy for any practising musician – a platform to play with each other.” Julia Roth, AYM’s volunteer programmer.