I spent a wonderful day yesterday at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD) for the preliminary judging round of the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe competition. Each year the YMFE competition provides a performance platform and scholarships worth £2000 each for three 18-25s studying music full-time in the UK. The current round focuses on the UK's finest young brass and woodwind players and ten of them will receive a finalists' recital at Birmingham Conservatoire on 5th February 2009.

The event has been expertly co-ordinated for some years by Ian Frankland, who is in charge of Yamaha's brass and woodwind marketing and is a fine horn player himself. For yesterday's shortlisting session the judging team consisted of two of the UK's most respected brass and woodwind performers and educators, John Reynolds and Chris Mowatt. Clarinettist, John Reynolds, is currently Head of Woodwind at RWCM, has played for all of the BBC Orchestras and was Principal Clarinet in Kent Opera. John has held teaching positions at the Guildhall School of Music and at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester. He was Director of Woodwind Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music prior to his appointment at RWCMD. He is a senior moderator, trainer, examiner, and consultant for the Associated Board. Trombonist, Chris Mowatt, has had a sparkling career that has seen him as Head of Brass at the RWCMD and Principal Trombone of the Halle, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Symphony Orchestras. Chris was also a member of the Phillip Jones Brass Ensemble and later London Brass. I was the third judge and would have the casting vote in case of any major disputes. Happily, there were none!

Our task was to select just 10 players who would go through to the final event. We heard some stunning performances from every type of brass and woodwind instrument. On one or two occasions we did struggle to hear the detail of a performance, because insufficient care had been taken with the recording process or because a candidate had accepted a performance in which the soloist and accompanist weren't quite in tune with each other. In two cases the recording was so unclear that we were just unable to hear enough to include the performer in the shortlist. But the remainder of the submissions gave us some wonderful listening moments. As we listened we each produced independent selections and by the end of the day we discovered that we'd agreed on 6 of the ten finalists. After some negotiation and debate the remaining 4 were soon confirmed. 

So our final event will now consist of 3 clarinets, 2 flutes, 2 trumpets, 2 saxes and 1 bass trombone! Details of the 10 final performers will be announced in due course, 3 of whom will receive awards of £2000 each towards their professional development and launching their careers.

We'd like to extend out sincere thanks to RWCMD and our wonderful judges, John Reynolds and Chris Mowatt, for their help and support in this preliminary round. Members of the public will be able to attend the final day at the Birmingham Conservatoire on 5th February 09. We will announce ticket details soon.