Saffron Walden Music Festival highlights area’s talents

Saffron High Concert (Image: Archant)

The overall winner was trumpet player, Bethan Spragg aged 12 from Herts and Essex High School in Bishop’s Stortford who played The first movement of Neruda’s Trumpet Concerto in E Flat.

Bethan, who has been playing the trumpet since she was six, also won a Challenge cup. This is a category in the festival for musicians who have reached grades seven and eight on their instruments.

Having won the brass section, Bethan competed in the finale concert with the other four section winners. They were cello player Beth Parker aged 10 from Clavering Primary School who won the strings, playing Bouree by Handel, singer Aliyah Haynes, 10, from Ashdon Primary School and two pupils from Hockerill Anglo-European College in Bishop’s Stortford, Felicity Henry, 14, on the clarinet, who won the woodwind section and pianist Thomas Lewington, 17. Thomas also won a Challenge Cup.

There were 180 classes in the festival offering musical performances in a variety of styles. Each performer received a certificate with feedback and instructive comments from one of the five adjudicators, led by Hilary Sturt, violinist and a professor at the Royal College of Music.

Saffron High Concert (Image: Archant)

The other Challenge Cup winners were eleven-year-old cellist William Roddis from St Thomas More Primary School in Saffron Walden, and two Saffron High pupils, Adrian Ramirez-Valdez on the saxophone and singer Liam Goddard, both 16. Bethan was presented with her trophy by David Emberson, director of residential sales at the festival’s sponsor, Mullucks Wells.