BEWDLEY Youth Festival held the inaugural Wyre Forest Musicians Competition in St George’s Hall last Friday (January 23).

The competition was open to young people in full time education in years aged to 13 to 17 and who reside, or attend school, in the Wyre Forest District.

The well attended event saw a very high level of competition with 13 competitors from six local schools and colleges. The judging panel was lead by local choir leader Alastair Elliot and the accomplished local singer, Claire Worboys.

The three categories in the competition, solo instrumentalist, solo singer and singer songwriter, were won by Alex Hill from King Charles I, Maddie Abbots Cosier from Kidderminster College and Elisha Green from King Charles I respectively.

Other prizes included the Bewdley Youth Festival prize for best original composition, which went to Alex for his piece entitled “River” and the Helen Mackaness Award for young musician of the year which went to Hannah Law from Stourport School.

Alex and Maddie were chosen to represent Bewdley and District Rotary Club in the regional heats of the prestigious National Young Musician Competition organised by the Rotary International.

Peter Barnett, Bewdley Youth Festival director, said: “We have been running Bewdley Youth Festival for three years and during that time have managed to give a lot of opportunities to young musicians and artists to demonstrate their talents. We have been looking at running a competition for local young musicians for a while and when we got backing from the Helen Mackaness Trust it was just a question of finding a slot in the busy schedule of the local schools.

“Having seen a lot of the young musicians over the past three years I was expecting a good competition, but even I was surprised at the incredibly high standard of performance from the 13 contestants. It took the judges 40 minutes to reach their decisions, which indicates what a task it was.

“We are now looking forward to our next competition which is to be a Battle of the Bands, for young people up to the age of 18 in Wyre Forest who are performing as duos or full bands and are in full time education. The provisional date for this is May 2015, which will be confirmed very shortly.”