Festival win makes up for 'Britain's Got Talent' blow for Kincraig musician
A champion Kincraig piper has shrugged off his ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ anti-climax with an award-winning piano performance at the Badenoch and Strathspey Music Festival.
On claiming the Jean Murray Trophy for pianoforte solo against a field of some 60 young musicians, Ashley Newman (15) commented: "After years in Strathspey, the trophy is finally back in Badenoch."
The competition was held two days after he had received an apology from the organisers of the hit TV talent show.
They had encountered problems getting back to all the hopefuls who had auditioned at Edinburgh back in October, and an earlier e-mail to him had only confused the issue.
"I thought at first that I had got through, but they were at sixes and sevens, that’s all," said Ashley. "They had actually had worse problems on the day itself, with technical difficulties which made my performance almost impossible."
Ashley had hardly been able to hear the backing tracks he had painstakingly put together in Kincraig.
As ‘Pipe Bomb’, he had hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps on the TV trail to stardom – in the early 1970s, Dave Newman, now of Aviemore, had won ‘Opportunity Knocks’ for six weeks in a row, singing ‘The lion sleeps tonight’.
"It’s a shame I didn’t make it through to the televised stages," said the young hopeful, "but I’ll get over it. I really enjoyed today."
At the music festival, he rendered a varied programme for the judges and took the top honour in his age group.
Ashley opened with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue before going on to play Elton John’s ‘Your Song’, The Beatles’ ‘Lady Madonna’, Ludovico Einaudi’s ‘Love is a Mystery’ and finally the Etta James classic, ‘At Last’.
"Chopin was head and shoulders above me," he told the Strathy, "but at least I have his head and shoulders on my shelf for a year!"
Emily Strang, from Grantown, took the Festival Cup, the award for the younger entrants in the piano section.
One of the festival organisers, Carolyn Turner, said that the festival had seen a huge amount of local talent perform, and there was still one more evening to come with the traditional end-of-festival concert taking place this Friday.
She said: "It has been a very busy week, with many, many highlights. It is difficult to know what to pick out."
A new category for radio broadcasting was in the festival for the first time this year, and the competition was won by an entry from Gergask Primary School in Laggan.
Rev Helen Cook, from Kingussie, who hosts her own show, ‘Community Rodeo’ on Speysound Radio, was the judge and said that the winners would be welcome on Speysound Radio any time.
The piping night at the Duke of Gordon Hotel in Kingussie attracted 82 entries. Ms Turner said: "We were pleased to hear pipers and drummers from as far afield as Inverness, Ullapool, Achiltibue and Nigg.
"Our local youngsters continued to show the high standard of piping and drumming that we have come to expect over the past few years. Adjudicators Andrew Shilliday, Paul Harrison and David Harling were most impressed with the standard on display."
Once again Gaelic was well represented by Newtonmore and Dalwhinnie Primary School, and adjudicator Mrs Janet MacGregor said that some of the entries would be well received at Mod competitions.
Singing was very popular this year, in both solo and group entries, with entries for the former at a record level this year.
Kingussie High School pupils Ruairidh McDonald, Mark Howe and Maisy Thompson all took home trophies to Aviemore this year.
Aviemore Primary School pupils gave an enthusiastic performance of ‘I Built a Rocket’ and Kingussie Primary School this year performed ‘Our Five Senses’ in the group action song section.
One of the highlights of the dance evening was Calum Duncan, from Kincraig, performing a hornpipe, accompanied on the small pipes by Mr Lewis Thomson.
This was followed by Scottish Country Dancing by pupils from Strathdearn Primary School and three creative dance displays by Alvie Primary School.
For the final day on Friday, the festival moved to Inverallan Church in Grantown, where 29 youngsters aged from seven to 17 showed off their skills on the violin.
The section was topped off by a performance from Rebecca Amphlett from Grantown Grammar School, for which Eoin Millar awarded her an ‘outstanding’ certificate.
The individual brass players finished the session, with Grantown youngster Tom Strang winning the Graham Quaich.
The traditional end-of-festival concert will be held at Kingussie High School at 7.30pm on Friday.
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All of the results from this year’s Strathspey and Badenoch Music Festival are now available on-line at www.strathfest.com
