Author: Jannet

Read about the mini singing festival held as a trial run for the Springboard 2021 Virtual Festival.

The music syllabuses for the Springboard 2021 Virtual Festival are now available on the website. Just click here and navigate to the section(s) you are interested in.

Entrants will be required to record their performance, and you can find guidelines for making, labelling and uploading recordings here. The adjudicator will view the performances and they will be played to the other participants in the class and their supporters via a secure Zoom link. The adjudicator will give oral feedback, as usual. Comments sheets with written feedback (and marks for competitive classes) will be emailed to the performers, along with their certificates.

The deadline for entering the festival is 24 January 2021. Your confirmatory email will give you a further deadline for uploading your performance video (roughly a week before the date of the class).

For music classes in the Springboard 2021 Virtual Festival, the adjudicators will not be awarding first and second places, medals, prizes or cups, although they may choose to mention outstanding performances in their oral feedback. Our emphasis is on providing a supportive and constructive environment for our young performers.

For 2021, concerto classes for 14 years and under, and 15 to 19 years, will take place within each section, so don’t miss the opportunity to enter.

The Piano, Strings, and Guitar sections will also be running Be the Adjudicator classes, free to those who have entered other classes. Participants will be invited to listen to, and provide constructive feedback on, specially recorded performances. As well as helping to hone listening skills, these classes are intended to be interactive and fun, so do please join us if you can.

Don’t miss the multi-talented Eugenia Cheng – mathematician, author, pianist and long-standing Springboard supporter – talking to Michael Berkeley about the influence music has had on her life.

Springboard was treated to a series of wonderful performances by some highly accomplished young string players this weekend. Two cellists, Dilara Sahin (pictured) and Milan Beckett, won the Corin Long recital classes (senior and junior), and adjudicator Mark Messenger picked cellist Riya Hamie to receive the Cecil Aronowitz cup for the most promising string player.

But they were just three among many players whose musicianship and skill (developed through hours of dedicated practice) those of us in the audience felt privileged to have the chance to experience.

 

 

Saturday at Springboard saw teenage pianists (and some rather older participants) playing in a range of musical styles, from Bach to boogie-woogie, and giving much pleasure to all who attended. The day was rounded off by the Senior Championship Final, which was won by Freya Clarke.

 

 

 

Springboard depends almost entirely by volunteers – around a hundred altogether. Some are involved year round, planning and running the different sections, and others give a few hours of their time in March to act as a door steward, or to serve in the café.

All you need are empathy, tact and common sense. And in return you have the pleasure of working in a team and meeting other volunteers, the satisfaction of supporting people who are bravely putting themselves in the spotlight, and the opportunity to marvel at, and be moved by, the depth of their talent.

All volunteers are given a free pass to any of the Festival classes.

If you would like to volunteer at Springboard during March, for as many hours as you wish, please get in touch with Jannet King

At the Springboard AGM on 16 September, Springboard President, Gavin Henderson, awarded two British and International Federation of Festival medals for 50 years service to June Ingleton and Linda Bhattacharya.

A celebration of ‘four score years plus or minus’ was held for John Ingleton, Jenny Leworthy, Heather Cowl and Maxine Toff, with a stunning cake made by Ursula Eastwood.