Tickets are now LIVE for this year’s Ashburnham English Song Awards, and it is sure to be an afternoon of delightful music, interesting talks from world-class musicians, and a chance to enjoy the beauty of Ashburnham Place in the spring air. Now in its third year, the Ashburnham English Song Awards were started to continue the heritage of English Song, inpsiring and encouraging the next generation of classical musicians to explore the works of the British Isles and with a record number of applications this year, we are very proud to keep doing so.
Doors will open at 5:30pm, as well as the bar, and our evening will begin with a pre-competition talk by renowned pianist, composer and broadcaster, David Owen Norris, with what promises to be an incredibly informative and entertaining talk on English Song. The competition itself will begin at 7:00pm, and the evening will end at approx 10:00pm. We have eight duos competiting for a number of prizes this year, and each duo will perform a 15 minute themed programme of English Song. Our 2025 Finalists are as follows:
Carys Davies + Francesca Lauri
Georgia Mae Ellis + Blanca Graciá Rodríguez
Nancy Holt + Weng Soon Tee
Zheng Jiang + Weiling Zhou
Daisy Livesey + Ben Markovic
Eve Pearson Maxwell + Yiwei Deng
Theodore Nisbett + Siyuan Xu
John Ieuan Jones + Iwan Owen
Our finalists will have the opportunity to win:
SINGER’S FIRST PRIZE in memory of Molly Townson £2000 and a recital in next year’s Lewes Festival of Song
SINGER’S RUNNER UP PRIZE £1000
PIANIST’S FIRST PRIZE in memory of Hope Gosse £1000
PIANIST’S RUNNER UP PRIZE £500
AUDIENCE PRIZE for Best Singer £250
(It is possible for finalists to win more than one of these prizes).
This year, we invited students from Hastings College to desgin a poster to promote this year’s awards. The winning design, as featured on our poster, was created by Harrison Garmen.
This year, with a record number of applicants, our prelims audition day on Monday 17th of March, was brilliantly busy! Thank you so much to everyone for being prompt and allowing the day to run smoothly. We very much enjoyed meeting you all, and were incredibly impressed with everyone! For those of you who were not successful this year, thank you so much for being part of the compeition. We appreciate your time and wish you all the best in the future and hope that we will see you again next year!