Anna Lapwood champions inclusive excellence as she crowns BBC Young Musician 2022

Chair of the jury Anna Lapwood championed inclusive musical excellence and the power of music ‘to really change lives’ as she announced Jordan Ashman as the winner of BBC Young Musician 2022. 

In a rousing closing statement before crowning the 18-year-old percussionist, Lapwood said that every person involved in the annual competition, including the crew, the orchestra, teachers, families and the competitors, ‘commits to and believes in excellence’. 

She continued: ‘They believe in excellence not as something exclusive, but as something completely inclusive with the power to communicate shared experiences and the power to really change lives.’

The grand final, filmed on 29 September at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, and broadcast on Sunday evening on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3, saw the winner of each category final compete for the trophy.

Ashman, who commanded the full length of the stage with Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, is from Cambridgeshire and is currently studying at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. 

On being announced as the winner, Ashman thanked his family, his teachers, and his friends.

Lapwood, an organist, broadcaster, and music education advocate, described the finalists as ‘the best possible representatives of their generation and everything that generation stands for’.

Here is Lapwood’s closing statement in full: 

‘It’s been a pretty incredible evening, hasn’t it? I think even more special because there was a time a couple of years ago when we seriously wondered if we’d ever be in this situation again, with an orchestra sitting shoulder to shoulder, playing to a packed hall with these incredibly talented musicians.

‘I think we wondered if the music industry would ever really recover. And I think today has shown us that this is an industry with a real fire in its belly. 

‘Every single person involved in this competition - the crew, the orchestras, the teachers, the families, and of course the competitors, every one of them commits to and believes in excellence. 

‘They believe in excellence not as something exclusive, but as something completely inclusive with the power to communicate shared experiences and the power to really change lives. 

‘It’s hard to overstate what all five of the competitors tonight have achieved just by performing on this stage, but I think it’s fair to say that they are the best possible representatives of their generation and everything that generation stands for, showing that tradition and innovation are not mutually exclusive but go hand-in-hand.’

The other finalists were viola player Jaren Ziegler, flautist Sofía Patterson-Gutiérrez, trumpeter Sasha Canter, and pianist Ethan Loch.

Jess Gillam, Alexis Ffrench, and Josie d’Arby presented the final, which is available on iPlayer for 11 months.