BBC Young Musician returns on Sunday 3 May as part of the BBC’s digital arts festival Culture in Quarantine. The category finals were filmed before lockdown at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and will be broadcast over five weeks, starting with the keyboard final. The semi and grand finals will be broadcast in the autumn.
BBC Four will broadcast hour-long highlights of the category finals, with the full concerts available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
Organist and conductor Anna Lapwood makes her TV presenting debut in this year’s BBC Young Musician, with former finalist Jess Gillam joining the presenting team to meet former young musicians. Josie d’Arby introduces the complete concerts on BBC iPlayer.
The jury members for this year include violinist Fenella Humphreys, pianist Katya Apekisheva and flautist Katherine Bryan.
BBC Young Musician has helped launched the careers of major international artists including cellists Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Natalie Clein, violinists Nicola Benedetti and Jennifer Pike, clarinettist Mark Simpson and oboist Nicholas Daniel.
This year’s category finalists are as follows:
Keyboard: Pianists Sejin Yoon, Jacky Zhang, Bridget Yee, Thomas Luke, Harvey Lin
Woodwind: Flautist Daisy Noton, clarinettist Marian Bozhidarov, oboist Ewan Millar, recorder player Eliza Haskins and bassoonist Alice Gore
Brass: French horn player Joseph Longstaff and Annemarie Federle, trombonist Meggie Murphy and Rhydian Tiddy, and tuba player William Burton.
Percussion: Percussionists Lewis Kentaro Isaacs, Isaac Harari, Toril Azzalini-Machecler, Fang Zhang, Alexander Pullen
Strings: Violinist Mio Takahashi, Ilai Avni and Coco Tomita, harpist Huw Boucher and cellist Ellen Baumring-Gledhill
