Worthing Festival Pianist.

It happened again. I won Worthing Festival Pianist of the Year 2015. Pretty chuffed.

It was around this time last year that I started Blip properly - with this entry. It's annoying that I haven't been more committed, and I know it's not good to try and catch up before continuing, but I've been trying to fill in a few of the gaps.

Anyway. I had three classes today: versatility, concerto and the final for the pianist of the year. In the versatility class I played Mozart's Flute concerto in G and also Shostakovich's Prelude no 5. Neither of which I overly enthuse about, but they're nice enough pieces. Considering that I was the only entrant, I won that. I also played in the Concerto class for the first time this year; my violin teacher was asked to adjudicate alongside Graeme Humphrey (whom I respect very much). I played Barber's Violin concerto which I'm preparing for my diploma in July and for a first performance, I was quite pleased. I was up against students at music colleges so I wasn't expecting to place anywhere - the first prize was £100! - soI was extremely surprised to hear that I'd come third. No prize, but a huge amount of pride and satisfaction. To round off a bit of a busy day, in the final,  I played a Lyadov prelude and Beethoven's sonata in C minor. Both of which I did for my grade 8, so I was fairly comfortable with them. There were only three of us in the final (one of them being the same person from last year), and yet again, I didn't expect to win. When you're up against people who play much bigger pieces and with much more precision, I never really feel like I'm in with contention. But apparently something must have gone right.

All in all, a rather lovely day.