Isabella 5

Well done Isabella. In your composition you set your stall out with confidence – stating the pentatonic scale raw and ready for cooking. I loved the inclusion of the tremolos. Such a lovely effect on the flute. I enjoyed your clear melodic lines and the repeated rhythms in the middle which gave the piece stability. We like to think we know what the next note will be. Good compositions are full of surprises. Just like yours. Jerry

Sophie 5

I loved the contrast you put in your first two phrases slow - stately then fast - rhythmic. Shades of Aaron Copland in there! Then the recorder took me by surprise. Nice touch! And excellent playing, too! The return to the flute at the end was structurally a good idea and made the composition rounded and complete. Well done. Jerry

Matilda 5

Lots of good compositional technique going on there Matilda. A good strong melodic line at the beginning set the scene for your Tiger March, Matilda. The phrases where you repeated a drop of an octave from middle D to low D tied your piece together neatly. I haven’t seen that many tigers in one living room before. They will be proud to march to your music! Jerry

Emme 5 Song of the Wind

Ear-catching opening Emme and I loved the way it all built steadily and opened out in echoes and a very complex soundscape. You have a genuine gift for melody, structure and texture. You created an atmospheric composition and your video was a clever piece of montage. My thoughts while listening and watching were that I was experiencing the effects of the breath with which we animate our flutes together with the visual effects you presented of nature’s gusts and breezes. You can’t see wind but you can see its effect, hear it and feel it. Your sound track was on point. And your music goes deep Emme. Well done, again! Jerry

Paloma 5 Just love the audience!

I am so glad that included Anna Maria Mozart in your audience. Mozart’s mum would have been very honoured to hear such sweet music played by you. I loved the cut of your melody and its question-answer phrases. It was well structured and also had the feeling of freedom that you normally find in a cadenza. You had a wonderful echo of some of the earliest flute studies (Frederick the Great and Quantz) where you riff on a chord and excavate it for every idea it will yield. Well done. And an enjoyable performance too! Jerry

Max 5

You blended the flutes in your composition wonderfully well Max. A tightly written genuine duet – a dialogue between two flutes. I liked how you set the piece up with an agitated motif and then had the other flute enter in contrast with longer notes. This was a feature you developed in a way that gave a natural sense of progression. (These are all big ticks by the way) I also enjoyed how you had the unison flutes break back into melody against melody. You finished with the opening as a ritornello. Well structured, well written, well done Max! Jerry

Anna 5

You have a lovely gift for free-flow melody Anna and you put your ideas together with skill and awareness of form. It’s like you were telling a story with a beginning a middle and an end. It sound obvious but it is a universal structure that works. You did something Bach often did and that is something called ‘augmentation’. It’s when you write a phrase and then repeat it but with all the notes doubled in length. Bach was very clever in the way he recycled ideas within a piece. You are as clever as Bach, you see!! Jerry