Composer is crowned

A 22-year-old woman has won the inaugural Caritas International Young Composer of the Year contest held in Canterbury earlier this month.

Sarah Cattley produced a work based on the Pardoner’s Tale in the competition which invited entries from across the world inspired by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Composer David Conte was the judge at the University of Kent’s Collyer-fergusson Hall.

Benedict Preece, the music director of the Caritas Choir, said: “The standard was exceptionally high. The entrants came from around the world.”

Miss Cattley comes from Cambridge, but other finalists came from Italy and the US, as well as Lewis Edmunds from Canterbury.

The first prize was £750 while the other finalists won £150.