The evening of the 10th November 2011 was marked by a series of excellent performances by nine of our more advanced string players, competing for the George Shuffrey Prize for String Players. We were also exceptionally lucky to have Lesley Hatfield, Leader of National Orchestra of Wales, as our Adjudicator.
Our three ‘cellists, Ben, Charlie and Matthew, gave us Squire’s Dance Rustique, Romberg’s Sonata and Aaron Minsky’s Train Whistle, all with poise and control. Won Jin tackled Schumann’s particularly oblique Marchenbilder with assurance, and two of our violinists, Zelig and Freddie, played Edward German’s well-known Torch Dance. William’s account of Czardas went down particularly well, and Huw and Oliver both managed to shape a particularly sweet atmosphere in Adoration and Liebesleid respectively.
Lesley Hatfield spoke of the need to engage the audience and to do this by communicating effectively, saying that for her, the winner is always the one who gives the best performance irrespective of the technical challenge. For this reason, second place went to Matthew and first prize, a cheque for £75, went to Zelig.