Keyboard Final BBC Young Musician

Two years ago, 16-year-old Lara Melda captivated us

with a breath-taking performance of the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2

and was named BBC Young Musician 2010.

It was an enthralling final,

featuring three very talented young people

and in Lara we found a truly special winner.

She's already in demand on the professional stage

and I know we'll be hearing a lot more from her in years to come.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Tonight, we begin our coverage of BBC Young Musician 2012,

and I can tell you that we have some exceptional young performers.

Over 450 applied.

Just 25 remain.

Over the next four weeks, we'll be following their journey

as they stake a claim to become the next BBC Young Musician.

One thing's certain - there's no overnight success here!

It takes huge amounts of talent, dedication and passion

to reach this standard.

But we're looking for something even beyond that.

Something extra special.

You can expect tension, drama and some magnificent music-making.

Welcome to Cardiff, and BBC Young Musician 2012.

It gives an opportunity they can't possibly have anywhere else.

It helps you understand what performance is.

To get every note, you know, to the highest possible standard.

It's a very stimulating experience.

I remember watching it and thought, "Wouldn't it be great?" The exposure provides many things.

It starts off your career, if you like, on a different level.

It's clearly a great start to your professional career.

It really does open doors for people.

My life has been changed.

It's a very important competition.

I wouldn't be here right now if I hadn't won it. It's amazing.

Lots to look forward to over the next four weeks.

This year, we're at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff

for these category finals and the semifinal.

This is the second year that the college has played host to BBC Young Musician at this stage

but, since the competition was last here in 2008,

the building has undergone a major new facelift,

including the addition of a fantastic new concert hall.

Last-minute preparations still going on in the hall ahead of tonight's Keyboard category final,

which opens BBC Young Musician 2012.

Very soon, we'll be hearing five brilliant young pianists

perform on this stage. Their aim - to convince our expert jury

that they've got what it takes to be named category winner

and book that all-important place in the semifinal.

Before we meet them, here's a quick guide to how all of our category finalists reached this stage.

From the very start, the standard has been incredibly high -

you have to be Grade 8 or above just to enter this competition.

Over 450 musicians applied, with auditions held all around the UK.

But just 25 have made it through to this stage - the category finals.

That's 5 finalists in each instrumental group -

Brass, Woodwind, Strings, Keyboard and Percussion.

Our category finalists are now competing for an all-important place in the semifinal,

which will bring them a step closer to the coveted title,

BBC Young Musician 2012.

The final will be broadcast on 13th May on BBC Two

from The Sage, Gateshead, where just three competitors

will have the chance to perform a full concerto with the Northern Sinfonia,

conducted by acclaimed maestro Kirill Karabits.

We'll be here on BBC Four for the next four weeks with extensive

highlights of the category finals.

We'll also be going behind the scenes to meet the jury

and find out how they make those agonising decisions

as well as getting to know all of our finalists a bit better -

starting with tonight's pianists.

Let's meet the five competitors who've made it through to this year's Keyboard category final.

The first of our five is 16-year-old Dominic Degavino, from Chesterfield.

It's very exciting actually. When you're performing you want to say something to the audience.

I think enjoying yourself is a part of it.

Whether you win or not it's down to playing on the day

and we'll see what happens, but I'd love to win.

Originally from Seoul, South Korea, 18-year-old Victor Lim studies

here in the UK, making him eligible to compete in BBC Young Musician.

I'm usually OK. Half an hour before it starts kind of getting crazy.

I'm not feeling the nerves yet, but that'll come.

It will be good experience just being here whatever the result is.

I feel really privileged.

Having reached this stage two years ago,

15-year-old Yuanfan Yang is a veteran of this competition.

I'm really excited to be honest. I'm looking forward to tonight's performance.

Performing in front of the judges, I'm going to try my best.

I've done a really contrasted programme and it means a lot to me, this repertoire I'm playing today.

Hopefully they'll like it.

It doesn't sound too much?

Also 15,

Adam Boeker is from Canada but studies in Manchester.

Although I am looking forward to it I'm slightly anxious and nervous.

The standard is so high this year, but I'm really looking forward to playing it.

When I see the judges on stage I'll do my best to impress them.

Finally, Martin Bartlett, who's 15 and comes from Essex.

I'm so excited.

I think I'm going to consider it as a performance rather than

a competition and just play to everyone.

The judges aren't too far away.

I don't see them as any different to anyone else in the audience

because everyone's come here to listen to music.

It's lots of hours spent at the piano beforehand,

but then it turns into 20 minutes on the stage.

You have to make the most of the time you have on there

to show everything you've been working on.

There we have our five finalists.

We're not far from hearing our first Keyboard Finalist.

Two years ago it was this category that gave us

our overall winner with 16-year-old pianist Lara Melda.

She joined an impressive list of previous winners including

violinist Nicola Benedetti, pianist Freddy Kempf

and cellist Natalie Clein, all of whom have gone on to have

international careers as soloists and recording artists.

Two years on we have been catching up with Lara to find out

what it meant to her to win BBC Young musician 2010.

The BBC Young Musician of 2010.

We were holding hands and shaking and like, "Oh, God."

So intense.

-Lara Omeroglu.

-APPLAUSE

'It was an amazing occasion.'

To see her win, I was overjoyed for her.

It's been a busy two years for Lara since winning the title.

The competition has opened a lot of doors for me.

I've been giving concerts non-stop. It's been such a pleasure.

She's thriving. She's loving all the opportunities.

I've been loads of places. I've been to Venice, Switzerland, I've been to Turkey three times.

I really enjoy it.

In addition to her many performances,

Lara still has to find time for her studies at The Purcell School

and the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music.

Good.

'Achieving the level she did'

to be crowned BBC Young Musician was absolutely fantastic.

Having to build on her performances

and make sure that every performance is of the quality that

one would expect of someone of that standard.

I would not be here right now if I hadn't won it. It's amazing.

APPLAUSE

It gives me goosebumps just to remember her performance -

that rare combination of superb musicianship,

technical artistry, and a gigantic soul.

Qualities that I'm sure our jury will be looking for in tonight's

category finalists.

So, let's meet our decision-makers.

They are...celebrated concert pianist Ronan O'Hora -

Winner of the Keyboard category final, 1980...

What one is really looking for is a sense that they can react to

and empathise with the music they are playing

'and that they can communicate that in their own voice.'

..Richard McMahon, Head of Keyboard at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

I'm expecting every performance to be musical,

well finished performances that help the music speak directly and hopefully movingly.

..and our General Adjudicator -

conductor and founder of Sinfonia Cymru, Gareth Jones.

They have 20 minutes to give us as much of a profile of what

they're about, what they have to say, how they feel about the music.

You have to focus on your own strengths.

You have to have a real conviction in the programme you have put forward and a belief in it.

That I think is a very key point in what distinguishes memorable performances from praiseworthy ones.

I'm going to try and find that elusive quality that marks out the winner.

With the audience ready and the jury taking their seats in the Dora Stoutzker hall

we are fast approaching the first performance of BBC Young Musician 2012.

I think we can safely describe tonight's Keyboard category final

as the battle of the specialist music schools.

The competitors all come from either The Purcell School in Watford,

Wells Cathedral School, or Chetham's School of Music in Manchester.

Our first finalist, Dominic Degavino, is one of three pianists from Chetham's,

where I suspect there's more than a bit of friendly rivalry going on.

16-year-old Dominic Degavino lives in Chesterfield.

His introduction to the piano came about quite by chance.

One day at my first school we all got a letter from Yamaha keyboard classes

asking us if we wanted to go along and have a try.

For some reason, maybe it was fate,

I decided that I wanted to have a go and see what happened.

It seemed to come very naturally to me to be honest.

We were talking to my old piano teacher, who suggested that

I think about going to Chetham's.

We'd not heard of Chetham's before, had we?

I didn't even know a music school existed, a specialist school.

We went along to the audition thinking he had no chance of getting in, and straight away

they said, "He's got amazing potential, he can come here."

When I got there it was just a place completely full of music.

It just really appealed to me.

'We didn't want Dominic to leave home.'

We didn't think that a child of ours would ever leave home at 10 years old,

but we felt we had to give him the opportunity.

It has changed my life.

It has allowed me to do what I love doing most.

I started teaching Dominic six years ago when he was 10.

'He had just attained Grade 4 piano.'

SHE HUMS

Missed pedal.

He was moved up to about Grade 8 standard within six months.

It's been incredible to have her as a teacher.

He is voracious, he's a sponge for learning.

When I'm performing I feel very much at home.

I can express myself very easily - more than

I would necessarily express myself when I'm talking to people.

At the very beginning at Chet's we had jazz improvisation class

for all the pianists.

'Again I found it quite natural and after a while it was fairly easy'

for me to put ideas through and it's such an interesting thing and it really pulled me in.

'I found that quite extraordinary.'

To me he's a born performer. He can do almost anything you ask him to.

Life without music would just be so incredibly difficult.

I can't imagine at all what I would be like as a person now

if I had not taken up the keyboard classes.

-It just makes you feel really proud.

-It's astounding to watch him play.

He is so full of confidence. He has changed so much in that way.

And so to open this year's BBC Young Musician Keyboard Final here is Dominic.

He is going to begin with Scarlatti's Sonata K20 in E Major.

Dominic Degavino making an assured start to his programme with Scarlatti's Sonata K20.

Next he has chosen Chopin's Nocturne in C Sharp Minor.

It's a very, very beautiful lyrical piece.

You have to create a sort of mood and an atmosphere, which is very difficult but hopefully

something which will come across to the audience and be very captivating.

The final piece I'm playing is the last movement of Dutilleux Piano Sonata.

'This piece has got all sorts of different moods to it. It is Choral And Variations.'

It is really incredible.

APPLAUSE

A dazzling display from Dominic,

getting this Keyboard category final off to an impressive start.

His parents certainly look happy, but what will the jury think?

Dominic, you didn't look nervous at all. Were you feeling it?

Not too much actually, no.

Maybe some healthy nerves.

I was more excited, I think.

To play a piece like Dutilleux,

which he clearly not only knows so well, but feels so deeply,

he shaped it so well, articulated it so well.

Particularly liked the quiet moments in his Chopin.

Was there a moment you particularly enjoyed? Any of the three pieces?

I enjoy all of it, really, every second of the programme.

So we're up and running.

Dominic Degavino with a flavour of what we can look forward to

over the next four weeks.

Next on, it's 18-year-old Victor Lim.

Originally from Korea, Victor is a full-time student

at Wells Cathedral School.

But during the holidays he returns home to his family in Seoul.

I go home three times a year.

At school, I've got a lot to do every day,

but at home I can relax quite a lot.

It's a time to talk to everybody, to catch up with everyone.

It's the family and the care and the food which I miss the most.

Victor was just 12 years old

when his father's work brought the family to the UK.

It was here that Victor first started to take his piano playing seriously.

After two years,

Victor's parents made the decision to move back to Korea,

with Victor staying in the UK as a full-time student

at the Wells Cathedral School.

I liked the country so much and I wanted to stay here.

I love the culture and the prosperity in music

and the cultural arts.

What struck us was, first of all, his great enthusiasm and commitment

and his pianistic and musical potential.

Listen to your bassline, come on.

More.

Quite full here.

Good.

When I came to Wells,

I was more interested in the study of music than the piano.

Now I've picked up an interest in the piano even more.

As a pianist, the thing about Victor is he's a very warm and communicative player.

There's an immediacy of communication to his playing,

great sincerity and warmth.

I've done chamber music and composition.

I've been able to explore lots of different musical things,

other than the piano.

I've found it really helpful in terms of the piano playing as well.

His commitment and his passion for music is very evident.

He approaches his studies in a very probing and intelligent way.

He's a thinking musician.

As a school study group leader,

Victor has developed a taste for teaching.

In the future,

he's hoping to combine this with a performing career.

What year was Bach born in?

Bach was born in 1685.

I just find the whole process of teaching really, really exciting.

See you next week. Can I have your music prep, please?

Next to piano, it's the thing I enjoy the most.

See you next week, Monty. Bye, George.

That's what I want to do in the future, for definite.

Victor opens his BBC Young Musician recital

with the first movement of Haydn's Sonata in B Minor.

There aren't that many minor sonatas by Hayden.

It's one of the very few

and the first movement is a very driving and energetic piece.

Whilst we kind of regard Hayden as a quite light and fun composer,

this is quite a menacing, nearly violent actually,

quite passionate and masculine piece.

From the classicism of Haydn,

Victor's programme now moves to the early 20th century

and the sonata Opus 1 by Alban Berg.

This is a piece where every single note

has some kind of direction from Berg.

Sometimes the directions contradict each other.

It's a very fun piece to play, to analyse and to study,

and it's really exciting, really passionate, quite agonising,

a really complicated, emotionally, work,

which I really enjoyed playing.

I'm really enjoying Victor Lim's performance so far.

He clearly had such an affinity with that Haydn,

and then to hear that Berg, it's such a difficult piece,

but very, very beautiful, and I think he just really made it his own.

And now a complete change of mood, and a complete change of scene

with this Bach, a transcription of a chorale.

I'm really enjoying this one.

APPLAUSE

A gutsy performance there from Victor Lim,

in what was a very technically demanding programme.

Has he done enough to win over the jury?

Beautiful use of the piano, tremendous command in the playing.

My legs are still shaking, so I can't really talk.

He showed a real maturity, depth and intelligence.

Sometimes, perhaps, he needs to just have

almost a little more fun to go with it.

There were a few slips all the way through.

It's really just because I was a bit nervous.

The pedal was a little bit awkward,

my position, my legs, but hopefully it didn't come across.

Really high standard set by our first two performers.

Still to come, Adam Boeker and Martin Bartlett,

but first a familiar face from two years ago

15-year-old Yuanfan Yang.

Back in 2010, Yuanfan left a lasting impression on the competition,

with his virtuosic performance during the category finals.

It was a really good experience in 2010.

I got to go and play 20 minutes

with a big audience and good adjudicators.

Although he didn't win his category,

he was awarded the Walter Todds Bursary for musical promise.

I was really pleasantly surprised.

It's very useful. I mean, £1,000 to help you towards learning.

I think it's very useful and I'm very happy I received it last time.

Two years on, he's back and taking another shot at the main prize.

My friends and family urged me, "Why not give it another go?"

And I'm pleasantly surprised

I managed to get to the third round again.

Yuanfan's talent for the piano

came as a bit of a surprise for the family.

After buying a piano and finding him a teacher,

it was suggested that Yuanfan apply to Chetham's.

Originally we were struck by the incredible warmth

and extrovert energy

and creativity coming out of every pore of his being.

As well as performing, Yuanfan is passionate about composing.

Yes, so you're thinking in your piece of perhaps involving some Chinese sounds.

Maybe the harp to imitate all those Chinese zithers.

'It's not just about, you know,'

like playing music, it's about creating new music, as well.

With the piano, he's got this first-rate technique,

and he writes in a way that uses it very effectively.

I think they're mutual, piano playing and composition,

they both help each other, as well.

-The heart, maybe, I don't know.

-To symbolise...

-The arrival of the goddess.

He really does have an extraordinary knack of finding

colours and sounds in a very exciting way.

It's very good, I get to play my own ideas and I know that's exactly how I want it to be.

Well, two years on from Yuanfan's first BBC Young Musician appearance,

will this be his night?

Yuanfan is incredibly hungry as a performer.

Since the last Young Musician he's matured beyond all measure.

To play music, to compose music, I think it's absolutely fantastic,

and whatever I become I must be in the music world.

APPLAUSE

He starts his programme with the first movement

of Beethoven's Sonata in E Flat.

Dazzling stuff, and next a piece by one of his favourite composers.

For modern composers I absolutely love Debussy.

How he creates the wonderful atmosphere in his music is unbelievable.

Particularly this piece, La Terasse des Audiences du Claire de Lune,

which means, "The terrace of moonlit audiences".

Tremendous delicacy in his Debussy there. Next in his bid to impress

the judges, Yuanfan performs one of his own compositions.

I finished composing this earlier this year.

It is called The Haunted Bell, which represents a bell of a clock tower.

You can hear this strange bell that keeps sounding throughout the piece.

13 times in fact. It represents midnight as well

and strange, eerie, ghostly things that happen around the bell.

The Haunted Bell, composed and performed by Yuanfan Yang.

To end his bid for this year's Keyboard title

Yuanfan is performing the last movement from Chopin's Sonata in B Minor.

It's a really virtuosic showpiece.

APPLAUSE

Yuanfan bringing his programme to a close with a flourish.

A fantastic reception from the audience,

but how does he rate his performance?

Congratulations, Yuanfan. What a fantastic performance.

How are you feeling?

-It was all right, I think.

-Oh, you think!

-Well, I think...

I mean, I really enjoyed that feeling on the stage. It's a fantastic hall.

It was a great experience for me.

He was able to very much empathise with the different styles

of the composer whilst communicating

a very personal tone of voice throughout.

You were playing your own piece there. How did that go?

Yeah, I really enjoyed playing.

You know, it showed what my feelings were in the first piece

and it really meant a lot for me.

Really beautiful sound worlds he created, both in the Debussy Prelude

and in his own work, which is a very, very impressive piece.

The judges sounding very positive about Yuanfan's performance.

But what will they make of his Chetham's classmate, Adam Boeker?

Adam is from Canada

and is our third competitor from Chetham's.

As a full-time student,

he's eligible to compete in BBC Young Musician.

But holidays mean a chance to catch up on life back home.

When I'm here in the UK, I miss my family mostly

and just Canada in general, cos I grew up there.

Usually when I go home for breaks and Christmas,

I usually just listen to music

and go skiing and skating with my brother.

I'm not very good at ice hockey, but I still love to play it.

I wouldn't be able to make a team,

but it's still something I enjoy doing.

When he's here, he's either practising or he's listening

to music really loud, constantly.

We take him to the airport on the day of his departure...

ENERGETIC PIANO MUSIC

When we get back, it's so silent.

It's like a morgue in here without him

and it just... It's so sad.

It was a childhood curiosity that first drew Adam to the piano.

We inherited our piano from my grandparents.

We'd had some sheet music which we also inherited.

He was always looking at the sheet music and one day said,

"I really want to learn."

Adam's interest in music may have begun in Canada, but it wasn't

until the family moved to the UK that he began to flourish.

We really didn't know how talented he was until we were in England.

My old piano teacher advised that I try

maybe auditioning for a music school here.

He went to Chetham's and they said, you know,

he really should be attending here.

But the excitement of being accepted by the school

was tempered by the news that the family were to return to Canada.

It was really a question of do you leave him

on his own in a foreign country?

He was nearly 13 and we let him stay on.

It's a bit of a mother's nightmare, ongoing.

When the flights get cancelled, I can't help

but imagine him in airports, stranded.

They've been really very, very supportive.

Without their consent and letting me come to the school,

I don't think music would ever have opened up for me as a career.

I think you want to terrify out of their wits the audience.

I think he's a very creative young man.

I think he's full of mischief in his music making,

but also full of incredible intensity.

What drew me to the piano most

was just the ability to express myself through music.

The journey of learning to master an art is quite interesting.

He can bring alive this incredible genre of music.

I think that's a huge gift,

to be taught by a 15-year-old music appreciation.

I was not expecting at all to make it this far.

It was a real shock for me, but I was overjoyed.

APPLAUSE

So here is 15-year-old Adam Boeker

to perform in the Keyboard final

of BBC Young Musician 2012.

He begins with a rondeau

from the Partita No. 2 in C Minor by JS Bach.

A rondeau from Bach's Partita No. 2.

A dramatic change of style for Adam's next piece.

A movement from the Sonata in C Minor by Prokofiev.

I think it's one of the greatest piano pieces of the 20th century.

For Prokofiev, it's very introverted.

It was written right after one of his friends,

Maximilian Schmidthoff, committed suicide, so you can really

feel his agony and the oppression of the people in Soviet Russia.

For the finale, I've chosen Liszt's Rigoletto Paraphrase,

which is a marvellous paraphrase of Verdi's opera Rigoletto.

He transcribes the quartet from Rigoletto in such a way

that he manages to capture all four voices on the piano.

It's full of anger and passion and happiness and seductiveness,

and it's very difficult to play on the piano,

but it's a very beautiful piece.

APPLAUSE

A programme full of contrasts from Adam.

His mum, who's travelled all the way from Canada to watch him compete,

certainly seems delighted with his performance.

Adam, you look incredibly relaxed right now.

-Were you feeling nervous before you went on?

-Terribly nervous, yes.

Adam's a very gutsy player, there's a real drive and purpose in the playing.

The Rigoletto Paraphrase, which was technically again mightily impressive.

His Liszt was a terrific tour de force.

Despite his nerves, Adam Boeker seems to have

impressed the jury with a technically assured performance.

Next, we're going to hear Martin Bartlett from Essex,

the last of this year's Keyboard finalists.

For the past two years, 15-year-old Martin has been

a full-time pupil at the Purcell School.

But his musical education began at home.

When I first started to play the piano,

my mum taught me for two years.

Initially, we started when he was five.

I was quite a difficult student, quite temperamental.

It's a miracle that she wanted to teach me.

My mum decided, when I was seven,

that I should go for an audition at the Guildhall and the Royal College.

The main reason I chose the Royal College

was because it had very luxurious biscuits.

And so now, every Saturday, Martin travels to London

to attend classes in the junior department.

It starts off quite early with a piano lesson.

I have to get up actually around 6.30.

If Martin's teacher looks familiar, she's Emily Jeffrey,

who also taught Lara Melda, winner of the last BBC Young Musician.

I first met Martin when he was about seven years old.

It was immediately apparent that he had a very special musical gift.

Let's try that section again from the first time...

Good, keep singing.

We've been happily working together ever since.

It was quite daunting when I first went there,

but I've been there for seven years, so I've grown accustomed to it.

Now we're going to keep the shape here as well.

Don't come down too much.

It's non-stop at the college as Martin goes from one class to the next.

I have my piano lesson.

Wind quintet.

At the age of eight, he started the recorder,

then he started the bassoon.

By the age of 12, I got Grade A in all three, actually.

And then I have symphony orchestra where I played the piano in.

And then I also have my piano quintet at the end.

So I do quite a lot of chamber music during the day

as well as my main piano lesson.

Studying at the college has offered Martin some great opportunities,

including expert tuition from one of the world's finest pianists.

I had a masterclass with Lang Lang in 2010.

Ya-da-da-da-da. First time, ya-da-da-da-da.

I played Scarlatti's Sonata in F Sharp Major.

He's such an amazing artist, you can learn so much from him.

He loved meeting Lang Lang. You know, they're both very charismatic individuals.

You play a little bit close and then now open.

After he'd finished working with me, there was so much more colour in it and so much more vibrancy.

Well, his piano playing has changed out of all recognition.

Particularly in the last year. He has worked very, very hard... to get here.

You have to have confidence in yourself. You have to practise.

Simple!

He does come alive in performances.

I hope to just be the best I can be.

Calmer, actually, for just a few minutes up there on the stage

and you think, yes, lovely, it's worth it.

-APPLAUSE

-Time to find out if those hours of practice have paid off,

as Martin opens his programme with a piece he played for Lang Lang

Scarlatti's Sonata in F Sharp Major.

Just captivating playing there by Martin.

One of two pieces by Scarlatti that he performs in his bid for this keyboard title.

Next, we're going to hear him take on Chopin,

the Nocturne in D Flat Major.

The Chopin is very beautiful.

It's so passionate and it's full of so much emotion

and the left hand is incredibly difficult to control.

You don't want the left hand overtaking the right hand, in a way.

This is a mesmerising performance from Martin Bartlett, I have to say.

Completely drawn in by him.

His tactical mastery is quite superb,

but what's really coming across for me is just an extraordinary musicality and soul

and total command of that keyboard.

Very exciting to watch.

I'm playing an Etude de Sonorite,

which is all about the sonorities of the piano

and bringing out every single part of the piano,

using harmonics at the end to create the sound

and also just see the extent you can use the pedal and everything.

So it's basically just...shows you everything you can do with the piano.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Martin, goosebumps all the way, especially in your Chopin.

Do you think you could go all the way? The audience absolutely loved it.

Well, I hope so but, you know, we'll see what happens.

I'm just happy that I've played, in my eyes, really well.

He played with remarkable finesse and delicacy

that also still has an intensity

that communicates right to the back of the hall.

I loved his first Scarlatti, beautiful sounds he produced.

He has a very understated way of playing which actually

requires a lot of nerve and composure.

Martin Bartlett,

bringing this Keyboard category final to a stupendous close.

We've had five wonderful young musicians tonight,

each of them giving their all.

I've been very impressed by the sheer range of what we've heard tonight,

but it's not up to me to decide, thank goodness.

That's down to our jury.

Making the decisions:

Celebrated concert pianist Ronan O'Hora.

And our general adjudicator:

The first piece we heard, Dominic Degavino.

I thought it was a very brave and bold

and enterprising choice and it's clearly a piece he has a great passion for.

An incredibly complex piece of music

and at this stage in his career to be playing it at all is quite marvellous.

Each of the night's pianists has picked a big, pivotal piece.

In Victor's case we heard second the Berg Sonata.

He's someone with a very serious sense of purpose in the playing.

He showed himself to be a musician of real integrity.

We then heard Yuanfan Yang.

It was probably the best assembled program we heard.

And not least because he's got his own composition.

A very big, colouristic range.

-I think that was there throughout all the different styles.

-Yes.

He showed a clear stylistic awareness but always with that sense of colour.

-A wonderful opening to the Debussy.

-Absolutely.

The first notes of that...

well, for every piece he played but particularly that one can remember.

We then had Adam.

I think the list for me I needed more vocality, maybe.

The pyrotechnics were all there.

But we're talking about melody.

We're talking about that sense of colouring and shape.

It's a very complicated piece.

Finishing we had Martin, who started his program

with two Scarlatti pieces.

I have to say I loved his sound,

I thought his sound was absolutely beautiful.

You feel, even within what appears to be quite a limited dynamic range,

-such a large sense of space in the sound.

-Yes.

And a lot of range of colour.

I think he can, in his big playing, which is very immediate and exciting,

he can develop still more colour in that to match

the very communicative and eloquent colour that I think is there.

I would agree with that.

So, we have to make a decision.

We've got five very anxious musicians waiting backstage,

all wondering if they've done enough to win over that jury.

To announce the winner of the Keyboard category final

and the first competitor going through to the BBC Young Musician 2012 semi-final,

it's our general adjudicator, Gareth Jones.

APPLAUSE

And the winner of the BBC Young Musician 2012, Keyboard category,

the person that will go through to the semi-final, is...

Yuanfan Yang.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

So, second time lucky, the winner of BBC Young Musician 2012,

Keyboard category, is Yuanfan Yang.

The standard has been extremely high, five very good programmes.

For me Yuanfan had great presence on stage.

From the very first moment of the Beethoven

right through to the end of the Chopin,

everything was clear, in command.

The greatest sense of joy in communicating

what he felt about music to an audience.

It feels absolutely amazing and incredible.

I thank my family and my friends for supporting me

and my teachers for making all this possible.

I'm really grateful.

Did you secretly hope that this was going to be your year?

Inside, sort of, but I didn't know what was going to happen.

The main thing I wanted to do was enjoy myself and that's what I really did today.

APPLAUSE

Congratulations to Yuanfan.

We'll be hearing from him again in four weeks when coverage

of BBC Young Musician 2012 switches over to BBC Two for the semi-final.

In the meantime, join me here on BBC Four again next week,

when it's the turn of the Brass category to take centre stage.

Here's a little taste of what you can expect.

Beautiful sound.

They're the sort of things I dreamt about when I was nine or so.

Getting up to that top E flat right at the end.

What an amazing technique.

Industrial-size earmuffs would come in handy.

It's a great, fun piece to play.

He played it with real style and panache.

The winner of the BBC Young Musician 2012, Brass category, final...

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