Chandos Young Musician of the Year Competition takes place annually at the wonderful St Edmunds Hall at Malvern College and is open to musicians up to the age of 21 who live or study with 75 miles of Malvern and are of at least Grade 8 Distinction standard.  This year's competition had competitors from Birmingham Conservatoire; Guildhall School of Music; Royal Welsh College of Music; Chetham's School of Music, Oxford; the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and Rhiannon and Mr. Conway from HSMG!
Rhiannon (Year 9) played extremely well (superbly accompanied by Mr. Conway) and was rewarded with the commendation for the Most Promising Player in the competition.  She played the first and second movements of the Rimsky-Korsakov Trombone Concerto and the jazzy number Blue John which prompted the compere to ask her if he could book her to solo with his big band!
The adjudicators, who were conductor Richard Laing, Pauline Eldridge and Christianne Evans, praised Rhiannon for her "lovely tone, especially in the RK slow movement, which was given a lovely honest open performance" and her "stylistically convincing performance" of Blue John as well as stating that she "makes a convincing case for the trombone as a solo instrument!" which is good really as Solihull Symphony Orchestra have just booked Rhiannon as a soloist to play the whole of the Ferdinand David Trombone Concertino with them on 26 March 2011!
Well done, Rhiannon!