Carl hits top note to join musical elite
AYOUNG trombone player has earned a place in a worldrenowned orchestra.
Carl Ashworth, from Newbarn Farm in Whitworth, beat hundreds of other young hopefuls to be chosen to play in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for 2017.
The Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School pupil, 15, will now join around 160 other teenagers aged 13 to 19 selected from more than 750 applications from all over the country in performing concerts at major venues and on the radio.
Carl said he was “shocked and then really excited” when he found out. He said: “I wasn’t expecting to get in.
“I’m quite nervous but I have played to more than 1,000 people before at the Royal Festival Hall in London which was really nerve-wracking as well.
“I just remind myself of all the practice I’ve done when I play somewhere big like that, though, and it makes me feel calmer.”
Carl will play in eight major concerts this year, as well as playing live on BBC Radio 3 and appearing on Classic FM.
The aspiring musician, who lives with mum Ros, a veterinary nurse, dad Kedric and brother Ian, 12, who plays the trombone in the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain, practises every day.
He plays jazz and classical pieces, as well as being a member of the Whitworth Vale and Healey Brass Band and the Rochdale Borough Youth Brass Band.
He will take part in a week-long winter residency at the University of Nottingham later this month, before giving concerts at the Royal Concert Hall in the city on January 5, the Symphony Hall, in Birmingham, on January 6 and the Royal Festival Hall, in London, on January 7.
The residencies will involve an intensive preparation period of rehearsals, workshops and coaching from a team of tutors who will coach them in voice, movement, composition and improvisation.
Carl added: “I enjoy playing so much and would love to play for the BBC one day.”
Carl’s dad Kedric, 54, a former funeral director who plays the bagpipes as well as ‘dabbling on the piano’, said: “It’s wonderful news that Carl will be in the orchestra.
“Him and his brother have played at most of the major music halls in Britain. I’d be nervous in front of a thousand people but they just get on with it.”