Toril is enjoying his success as the 2020 Coro Nuovo Sussex Young Musician of the Year
The title Sussex Young Musician of the Year 2020 is proving a huge encouragement to 18-year-old percussionist Toril AzzaliniMachecler from Horsham.
Toril is now full time at the Royal College of Music. His first prize of £1,000 has helped him with the cost of his undergraduate studies in London.
“It was really great news. I had put a lot of work into it,” says Toril, “and so it was good to reap the seeds that had been sown. And it was great to be able to represent Sussex. I have taken part in international and national competitions, but never something internal to Sussex. It felt very close to home.
“I had been looking for grants online and I came across the Coro Nuovo Sussex Young Musician of the Year competition a couple of years ago, but the reason I did it this year was that I finally turned 18. You have to be 18 to 25.
“I had to send in a video recording of a recital with some talking at the beginning, some programme notes introducing the music. You had to play for about 12 minutes. I did it in my room, but some people did it from actual recitals. And that was it. There was no other stage apart from that. The same video was moved up through the competition. You didn’t have to enter another one and then another one. It went through to the final.”
And in the final, it was adjudged the winner, with plenty of encouraging comments fed back to Toril.
“It was very good for feeling good about yourself! I really felt brilliant, and it was great to know that Sussex is full of pretty good performers.”
The cash was really helpful with the ‘astronomical’ rent now that he has moved to
London full time after six years at the Junior Royal College on Saturdays.
“I became full time in September. I have just started my first year. It is very intense, but it is what I expected. It has been ranked top conservatoire by many different outlets for many years in a row and also the actual empirical evidence is brilliant. It’s great tuition and great facilities.”
And the coronavirus restrictions haven’t been too bad: “They have been really, really good at letting us have the maximum opportunities while sticking to the rules. There are lots of measures. You can’t do anything orchestral any more. That requires too many people in too small a space, and some classes have been split into two, but really it has been very good.”
Toril started out on percussion rather than piano, as some people do: “I started off on glockenspiel. Originally I wanted to play the drums, but I was really tiny, but what I really love is the variety and the range of what I play and the repertoire that I play. You get to play a lot of modern stuff which I love.
“If there is a downside it is that you are spread quite thin across lots of different instruments, but I do love the fact that there are so many instruments that I can draw on.”
His classes include timpani, marimba, jazz vibraphone, Latin percussion and drum kits.
Sponsored by Traditional Oak and Timber Company Tradoak, the Coro Nuovo Sussex Young Musician of the Year received its highest number of entries to date.