Third go for prizewinning pianist in BBC Young Musician final

The BBC has announced the line-up of category finalists for its Young Musician of the Year 2016. There are some exciting names on the list, including some we've come across before and loved hearing, in a variety of contexts, and a couple who are apparently gluttons for punishment since they are taking their second try - or, in one case, even a third shot at the contest despite having won his category before.

Watch out for cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason - from a whole family of gifted musical siblings...here he is with his violinist brother Braimah playing the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia:



Terrific saxophonist Jess Gillam was in the contest in 2014 and proved herself local heroine at last year's festival in her Lake District home town of Ulverston...



Then there's pianist Julian Trevelyan, who was also in the 2014 and won the top prize (2nd - no first awarded) in the 2015 Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in Paris. Here he is in some mightily impressive Shostakovich in another competition in France recently:

And the third go? Quite remarkably, the pianist Yuanfan Yang is back for yet another try for the top. Then a pupil at Chetham's, he won the BBCYM piano prize in 2012 and two years earlier was the youngest contestant in the category's final. He is now 19 and has established a very promising international career. But evidently he still wants to win this particular thing outright and over all. Will it be third time lucky for Yuanfan? Here he is in the final four years ago:



That's just small a taster of some of the amazing talent that this competition continues to attract and showcase - and I can't wait to hear all the others as well. What a shame that, in true TV talent contest style, "There can only be one winner"...

Here's the full line-up:

Keyboard

Jackie Campbell (15) – piano

Tomoka Kan (17) – piano

Harvey Lin (13) – piano

Julian Trevelyan (17) – piano

Yuanfan Yang (19) – piano

Woodwind

Polly Bartlett (17) – recorder

Lucy Driver (17) – flute

Jess Gillam (17) – saxophone

Joanne Lee (15) – flute

Marie Sato (15) – flute

Percussion

Matthew Brett (14)

Hristiyan Hristov (17)

Joe Parks (16)

Tom Pritchard (18)

Andrew Woolcock (16)

Brass

Sam Dye (16) – trombone

Zak Eastop (18) – trumpet

Ben Goldscheider (18) – french horn

Zoe Perkins (17) – trumpet

Gemma Riley (17) – trombone

Strings

Stephanie Childress (16) – violin

Sheku Kanneh-Mason (16) – cello

Charlie Lovell-Jones (16) – violin

Joe Pritchard (16) – cello

Louisa Staples (15) – violin