Project: Festival of Young Musicians 2019
Grant: £700
Fund: HoB General
The Wycombe Orpheus Male Voice Choir (WOMVC) Festival of Young Musicians takes place annually in early March. The Festival offers talented school age musicians from the Buckinghamshire area the opportunity to perform publicly and receive constructive feedback from the festival adjudicator to further their musical education.
WOMVC were awarded a grant of £700 which was used to cover the cost of the adjudicator at the event. Speaking after the festival Julian Grigg, fundraising coordinator at WOMVC said:
The funding for the adjudicator was key for the success of the 2019 Festival of Young Musicians. The presence of a professional adjudicator allowed the Wycombe Orpheus Male Voice Choir to maintain the high standards of the festival expected in the Buckinghamshire musical community, namely the quality of the informed scrutiny and objective judging of this event.
Case study:
A few years ago a small 11 year old boy called Joshua entered the festival in the junior piano class. He looked barely big enough to reach the piano but astounded us by winning the junior class and then reappeared with a half size violin in the strings class.
Despite having an amazing talent he came from a single parent background with a very low income. The adjudicator at the time remarked that the boy needed to go to a specialist music school and he would get no further without a full size violin. Consequently Joshua became the recipient of the Choir’s first ever bursary award (set up to run alongside the Festival).
Joshua applied to the Purcell School of Music and was accepted, then went on to Oxford University to study music, and is now an accomplished performer and writer of music for films and more (http://www.joshuahagley.com). Joshua has returned to the festival on many occasions to accompany other entrants and has also played at several choir concerts.
