This Saturday, 13th October at 12:30 p.m, we are delighted to hear a group of Outstanding young musicians playing for us at Holy Trinity. Students from Chetham’s school of music. Julie Zhang, Summer Ng, Maia Payne, Patrick Townsend together with Ethan Loch, who is blind and sees by clicking. Their programme is as follows:-
Julie Zhang
Sonata in F major HobXVI 23 1st movement, – Haydn
Fantasy Impromptu – Chopin
Born in 2008 in London, Julie started her proper piano training at the age of 5, with Miss Simone Wang who is an alumna of the Chetham’s School of Music. At the age of 6, she achieved ABRSM Grade 5 with distinction and several awards in the North London Piano Festival. At the beginning of 2016, she entered Chetham’s School of Music studying piano with Mr Simon Bottomley, hitherto. At the end of 2016, Julie went to Poland for the International Chopin Piano Festival and passed selection to play with honour. Her repertoire has been greatly expanded stretching from Baroque Period to Modern music, and she has a particularly touching feeling with Romantic Period, especially the painfully beautiful Chopin. Apart from her solo, she also enjoys with great passion for chamber music and some early tastes for piano concerto.
Summer Ng
Etude op.10 no.3 – Chopin
Polonaise in c# minor op.26 no.1 – Chopin
Summer Ng was born in Salford 6th August 2005. She started learning the piano at the age of 6 because was inspired by Yuanfan Yang’s BBC Concert. Her first school was Summerville Primary School and the second school was called River View Primary School. Summer started learning in Chetham’s School of Music in 2012 when she was 8. Her current teacher is Simon Bottomley and she has been studying with him for 3 years. She has played in the international Chopin piano competition in Warsaw, Poland. Apart from music, her favourite subjects are Maths and German and her hobbies are reading, drawing and kendo. In the future, Summer would like to be a teacher or an interpreter.
Maia Payne
Etude op. 10 no.4 – Chopin
Scherzo-Valse – Chabrier
Maia Payne is 13 years old and comes from Bury. She started playing the piano when she was 6 years old and auditioned for Chetham’s School of Music in 2016. She then joined Chetham’s in September of that year when she was in year 7. Her teacher is Simon Bottomley. In November 2017, she was a prize winner of the Chopin competition in Mazovia, Poland. She also competed in E.P.T.A. Belgium in February 2018, but was not a winner. She plans to go to the RNCM when she is 18
Patrick Townsend
Bolero op.19 – Chopin
Etude op10.no.5 ( Black Keys) – Chopin
Patrick Hideomi is 10 years old and studying piano at Chetham’s School of Music with distinguished piano teacher Simon Bottomley. Patrick started to learn piano with Hungarian pianist Dr. Marianne Gordon at the age of four. He enjoys sharing his piano musicianship with Japanese pianist Yuko Nagashima when he goes to Japan. Since 2015, Patrick has been hugely developing his technique and musicianship with Simon and passed his ABRSM Grade 8 Exam with distinction at the age of nine.
In 2015 he has won First prize in the class for under 15 years old at Mrs Sunderland Music Festival in England at the age of seven. In the same year he participated in the Young Pianist of the North International competition debut class in Newcastle and was selected to perform in the winners’ concert.
In 2016 he was awarded honourable “The most promising pianist of the festival” at Mrs Sunderland Music Festival. In the same year he has won Laureate at Chopin International Piano Festival in Poland Category III and he performed in Warsaw.
In 2017 he has won First prize in piano recital class at Mrs Sunderland Music Festival and was awarded “The best performer in Kirklees”. Then Patrick won the first prize at Hazel Grove Musical Festival. In the same year he has won First prize in EPTA UK 2017 Piano Competition Category Advanced II and performed in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London.
In 2018 he has won First prize at EPTA Belgium W-B International Piano Competition Category I. Recently Patrick has given recital representing UK at “Piano Prodigies” international conference in Malta.
Patrick has performed in UK, Poland, Belgium, Malta, Japan and he regularly enjoys performing as a volunteer pianist at St. James’ Teaching Hospital in Leeds.
Ethan Loch
Etude op.10. no. 8 – Chopin
2nd Scherzo – Chopin
Ethan was born in 2004 and diagnosed completely blind since birth. As a toddler, he would explore the piano for hours imitating his first inspiration, Rowlf the piano playing dog from the Muppet Show. His second inspiration, the DVD “Horowitz in Vienna”, he played relentlessly.
His formal piano lessons began at age 4 with his mother, but now he takes the long drive from Stirling to Manchester to study with Simon Bottomley. He has been composing since early childhood and loves to tell imaginative stories about his compositions.
Ethan’s first major concert was at a Music in Lanark event where he also debuted his first major composition work, “Wallace at Lanark” illustrating the life of Scottish hero William Wallace.
Ethan was the focus of a BBC radio documentary called “Batman and Ethan”. The central message of the documentary is the freedom a blind child can experience through working with the talented teacher of the blind, Daniel Kish.
In 2015 Ethan won the under-14 category at the Glasgow Music Festival when he was only 10 years old.
In November 2016 Ethan was awarded his first major International award in the Vatican. He received the “Premio Asoluto” prize at the 15th International “Giuseppe Sciacca” awards in Rome for his ability to create music “full of colours” as an inspiration to all.
On Saturday, 18th March 2017 Ethan won the 7th James Waterhouse Loretto Piano Competition “Advanced” class. As part of that prize, he performed at Steinway Hall in London.
In November 2017, Ethan won his category in the wonderful 25th Festival of Chopin in Mazovia, Poland. He performed at Chopin’s house and later for the Warsaw Music Society.
His first TV appearance followed in May 2018 on the ITV show Little Big Shots.