Gloucestershire Young Musician of the Year 2023 Isaac Williams wowed the audience at his prize concerto concert when he launched the 2024 competition to find next year’s Gloucestershire winner on Sunday night.

The 19-year-old former Sir Thomas Rich’s School student gave a faultless performance of Mendelssohn’s famous Violin Concerto in E Minor with Gloucestershire Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of GSO conductor and GAM Principal Glyn Oxley.

A capacity audience – including his family and former head teacher Matthew Morgan – filled Gloucester’s St Barnabas’ Church, where vicar the Rev Sarah Todd, a patron of GSO, came to the rescue when the original concert venue, Pittville Pump Room, had to close suddenly for safety reasons.

Isaac’s prize-winning year has seen him perform all over the county, at the Carducci Festival in Highnam Church, Cheltenham Music Festival, the 30^th anniversary of the Royal Forest of Dean Orchestra in Parkend and with Gloucestershire Youth Orchestra.

Since leaving school last summer, he has won a scholarship to Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he is now studying with Carducci String Quartet leader Matt Denton from Gloucestershire.

Those hoping to follow in his footsteps are already entering for the 2024 contest.

The concerto concert, which also featured Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite and Mozart’s ‘The Haffner’ Symphony saw £300 raised for the Gloucestershire Academy of Music’s Building Appeal.

Special guests included Dame Janet Trotter, patron of the academy, contest judge Professor Derek Aviss, head of Make Music Gloucestershire Mike Medland and sponsors Margaret Fuller, Ann Heron and Patrick Daly.