Joint Winners Announced as Gillotts Musicians of the Year

As there were no live music events last year for Gillotts School students to perform at, the school hosted their inaugural Musician of the Year virtual competition.

Felix Richardson (Y8) (above) and Mathilde Williams (Y10) were announced as joint winners last week.

Mr Bull and Miss King said, “We were really impressed with the standard of entries and know that you have all put in many hours of practice to reach this level of performance. As with any competition there must be a winner, actually two winners. We couldn’t decide between two performances. We have plans to run the 2021/22 Musician of the Year competition as a live event and to support the performers and we will be running performance technique workshops prior to the event. Once again, congratulations to all the musicians who entered.”

There were also two performers who have been awarded Highly Commended Amelie Holden and Eloise Seery (Y8).

Felix Richardson said, “I really like to perform and so it’s been difficult to motivate myself during the pandemic because there were no opportunities to play in front of people. I haven’t performed to an audience since the Henley Youth Festival in March 2020 with my sister, Didi, and also in the band “The Wires” with three other Gillotts students. The Wires haven’t been allowed to practice together at school for 18 months because of the Covid restrictions.

“I’m really grateful to the music teachers Mr. Bull and Miss King because the Gillotts Musician of the Year competition really helped me focus on a musical performance for the first time in ages. I picked Star People because I love the song and thought I could maybe do a version of it, playing percussion, bass and guitar that would sound OK. After recording the instrumental parts in the original key, it was lucky I could sing it in that key or I would have had to record it all again! It was fun to put the different tracks together and I was really pleased with the result.

“I’ve got a couple of gigs planned with Didi now and hopefully, The Wires will be able to rehearse when we go back to school in September. We haven’t been able to play together for a year and a half and I’m really looking forward to performing with them again.”