CONGRATULATIONS TO FELICITY

Your editor has asked me to provide an update on the musical progress of Felicity Vine.  So much has been covered in the local papers but there is much more to tell! The biggest news is that Felicity won a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Music in September 2001.

	She will study clarinet in the Senior department, equivalent to a University but specialising in music, and after her 4 year course she will receive her Bachelor of Music (Honours). The RCM is dear to Felicity - she has studied there each Saturday for the past 5 years in the Junior Department.  Her clarinet teacher, Angela Fussell, was President of the Clarinet and Saxophone Society and her Piano teacher, Alvin Moisey is a concert soloist. Although offered a place at the world-famous music department of Indiana University in America, the opportunity presented by the RCM had more appeal, London being such a centre for music performance. In her final year of the RCM Junior Department, Felicity has been awarded a number of prizes, reflecting how highly she is thought of.  The Director of the JD, Peter Hewitt said “Felicity has shown exceptional musical talent and is sure to do well in her musical career”.  One of the prizes, the Ruby White prize, was awarded for her performance in a college competition for a solo recital by a final-year student when she played the Carnival of Venice Variations by Giampieri.  It’s one of those pieces where the speed in places sounds as if 2 clarinets are accompanying each other!  Other parts are so soft and subtle that it’s really moving. A little later in the year, Felicity took part in the Concerto competition.  She won the Freda Dinn/Ida Mabbett prize for that and, as a result, played Crusell’s Clarinet Concerto with the College’s Chamber Orchestra under Richard Dickens in the magnificent main Concert Hall of the RCM.  A repeat booking followed, with a public performance of the concerto at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex.  I thought that the second movement, the slow one, was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. To cap all of these, on the final day of college, in the grand prize-giving ceremony, 2 students were each given a prize for their exceptional musical talent and who it is thought would go far in their musical career.  One of the 2 students was lead violinist of the RCM-JD Symphony Orchestra, Simon Hewitt-Jones, and the other - Felicity.  The prize, in honour of benefactor Esther Coleman, is a useful contribution towards an additional instrument Felicity needs, an Eflat   clarinet. As well as the progress my arm was twisted to relate above, Felicity has now got through the first round of the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year Competition.  Here’s hoping for further progress through more rounds of the competition, so keep watching the telly! As requested - Graham Vine