Perth Academy student in BBC Young Musician of the Year 2010 category final

Jan 15 2010 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

BBC TV cameras will be focussing next week on gifted Perthshire musician Joe Norris who has reached the final five for Woodwind entries for the prestigious title of BBC Young Musician of the Year 2010.

Perth Academy sixth-former Joe, from Glenfarg, will be filmed by the BBC next Friday playing with the school swing band and rehearsing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow the following day.

Joe (17) was one of many thousands of talented young musicians throughout the UK who last year took the first step along the gruelling road which leads to the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2010 final in Cardiff in May.

Now there are just some 150 entrants left, including multi-instrumentalist Joe who, for the competition, plays clarinet.

Having passed the regional auditions Joe is now one of five woodwind players aged 18 or under from across the UK who will compete in the category finals in Cardiff next month, in a performance in front of a panel of adjudicators and audience which will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Four.

Each category winner will receive £1000 and a place in the BBC Young Musician semi-final, where three competitors will be selected to go through to the BBC Young Musician 2010 final in May.

“It’s a great experience, and I was really surprised to get through to the category finals,” said Joe, who is lead clarinettist with Perth Youth Orchestra.

The busy teenager is also a member of the National Youth Orchestras of both Scotland and Great Britain, is grafting away at school for exams, and is managing to fit in some snowboarding.

He aspires to a full-time career in music, and acknowledges that being part of a musical family is a huge advantage: “My parents met while studying music at university and my brothers both play instruments, so I’ve always had music all around me.”

Dad Graham and mum Marguerite are both music teachers and helped develop Joe’s versatility, starting with Graham teaching guitar then mum teaching piano.

“I came to clarinet because I really wanted to play be a jazz saxophonist,” said Joe, explaining that the clarinet is a good starter instrument for potential sax players – he is now highly proficient on both!