BBC Young Musician of the Year 2020 Category Finalist

Lewis is currently in Year 12 and studies percussion with pioneering marimba artist Daniella Ganeva, as well as jazz drums with Sebastien de Krom and jazz piano with John Turville. Having joined the School in 2016, some of Lewis’ performance highlights for Purcell have been as a duo at Wigmore Hall, as part of the Symphony Orchestra at the Cadogan Hall and Watford Coliseum, and playing a marimba concerto with the Sinfonia Orchestra as one of the winners of the Middle School concerto competition. Lewis also came second in the Universal International Youth Percussion Competition in Belgium (2017), and reached the finals of the Yamaha #futurebeat under-18 drum competition (2018) and the Young Drummer of the Year in two consecutive years (2019/20). Outside of Purcell, Lewis plays with the Hertfordshire County Youth Orchestra and County Brass, and attends the Guildhall Saffron Centre for Young Musicians, with a focus on jazz drums.

The Percussion Category Final will be held at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff on 11th March, where competitors will play for a panel of judges in front of a live audience. The category finals will also be filmed for a televised broadcast on BBC4 in May, and recorded for coverage on BBC Radio 3.

The winner of each Category Final will go through to the Semi-Final to be held in Cardiff. From there the three semi-finalists will be asked to play in the Grand Final where the winner will be chosen. The Grand Final will be held at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall in May 2020, where the finalists will perform with the BBC Philharmonic, playing a concerto which they have chosen.

We are incredibly proud of Lewis and wish him enormous luck.

Tickets for the Percussion Category Final are available here.