AYM and Southwell Music Festival

One of the key aspects of our Awards programme is connecting our Award winners with partner orchestras and other musical organisations; these can provide access to exciting musical opportunities, such as tickets to rehearsals, concerts, masterclasses, mentoring plus the chance to perform at events.

In the past Southwell Music Festival has kindly invited our Award winners to observe rehearsals and attend concerts throughout the festival. In 2017 we were delighted to strengthen this partnership by devising a collaborative event that took place on Sunday 22 January. Three, lucky, East Midlands Award winners, Katharine (cello), Tim (violin) and Annie (piano), were selected for the project by Julia Roth, AYM’s volunteer events-programmer;  they spent the day being coached by Nathaniel Boyd (cello), Jamie Campbell (violin) and Libby Burgess (piano), on both solo and chamber repertoire, before performing to a packed audience in the Minster.

Following the success of this, inaugural partnership event, we were very pleased to be invited to stage a fringe concert during the main 2017 festival; this  took place over the August bank-holiday weekend. Performances by three Award winners: Katharine (Cello), Sharon (violin) and Annie (piano) were given in the Southwell Minster School recital-hall, to an attentive audience of festival patrons.

“I am excited and proud that the Festival is able to support the vital work of AYM. Since its inception the Festival has sought to provide performance opportunities for young musicians and this is a wonderful addition to our programme of events.” Marcus Farnsworth, Festival Director

We are looking forward to continuing our partnership with Southwell Music Festival in 2019, when we’ll be partnering with them again as part of their 2019 festival launch in April.