Congratulations to Cliodhna Scott and Sofia Ros who were awarded the Directors’ Recital Prize 2020 in the monophonic and polyphonic categories in the online final held last night.
The Directors’ Recital Prize is the School’s top instrumental award and the final normally takes place at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh. This year, on what was the competition’s 20th anniversary we were delighted to partner with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to create a virtual concert which premiered yesterday evening on Youtube.
Cliodhna Scott is a 16 year old flautist from Edinburgh. She gained entry to St Mary’s when she was nine years old and is currently taught by Lis Dooner and Katherine Bryan. Cliodhna has won the Edinburgh Competition Festival’s Wind Medal & Rennie Moncrieff Medal for the 10 and 15 minute Woodwind Recitals, and has won Medals at the British Flute Society's Young Performer Competition in 2018, 2019 & 2020. She is also the winner of this year’s Lord Clyde Memorial Concerto competition. She is an avid orchestral player and is a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for 2020 and 2021.
Her repertoire for the competition was
Telemann: Fantasia No.12 for Solo Flute, and Pierre Octave Ferroud: Three Pieces for Solo Flute (1921), 'Bergère Captive' , 'Jade' and 'Toan-Yan: La Fête du Double Cinq'
Sofia Ros was born in the Canary Islands in 2002 and began her musical education at the age of six with her teacher and composer Gorka Hermosa in the "Jesus de Monasterio" Conservatoire in Santander, Spain. At the age of 13, she finished her musical studies in Spain and gained a place at St. Mary´s Music School.
To be able to participate in the DRP, Sofia’s performance was filmed in Spain. She played Scarlatti: Sonata K.141 in D minor, Alfred Schnittke: 'Gogol Suite' (1976), arranged by Yury Shishkin for accordion and Chichikov´s Childhood The Clerks, Waltz, Polka.
Sofia has won a number of national and international competitions including the National Young Performers Competition "Ciudad de Cuenca" 2012 (Spain) at the age of 9, the Arrasate Accordion Competition 2012, 2018 and 2019 (Spain), the Ailie Cullen Memorial Prize from the CVII Glasgow Music Festival 2019 (Scotland) and the XVI International Accordion Competition of San Vincenzo La Costa (Italy).
She has also been awarded at the International Accordion Competition "Citta Castelfidardo" 2011 (Italy), the International Accordion Competition of Klingenthal 2014 (Germany) and she has been a finalist of Edinburgh´s Competition Festival Concerto Class 2018 and 2019 (performing Richard Galliano´s Accordion Concerto and Piazzolla´s Double Concerto).
She has recently obtained a place at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow where she will continue studying with Djordje Gajic.
We would like to thank the judges of the competition:
· Jo Buckley, Chief Executive, Dunedin Consort and a Director at St Mary’s Music School
· Alistair Mackie, Chief Executive, Royal Scottish National Orchestra
· Peter Whelan Artistic Director of Ensemble Marsyas and the Irish Baroque Orchestra
You can see the full competition on the School’s Youtube Channel.