Percussionist wins 2020/21 BBC Young Musician
Percussionist Fang Zhang has been named BBC Young Musician of 2020. The 17-year-old took the title with a virtuoso performance of Keiko Abe's marimba concerto Prism Rhapsody, which required him to play with six mallets simultaneously.
His playing "elicited a kaleidoscope of colours and expression" that "deeply moved the jury", said Angela Dixon, who chaired the judging panel.
The final of the biennial competition was delayed by a year because of the pandemic, and was filmed without an audience at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on 25 April.
Three finalists each played a concerto with the BBC Philharmonic under conductor Mark Wigglesworth; competing alongside Fang Zhang were 18-year-old French horn player Annemarie Federle and 19-year-old oboist Ewan Millar.
Zhang, who was born in China’s Henan province and has been at school in Manchester since 2018, impressed the judging panel with a performance of Prism Rhapsody by Japanese composer and marimba innovator Keiko Abe.
2012 winner Laura van der Heijden will be performing at the opening concert of through the noise’s noisenights series this summer. Find out more about that here.
