Welcome to the West Wight Arts Association

West Wight Arts Association Aptil concert

Rising superstar pianist Island born Thomas Luke, now studying at the Royal College of Music, will make a very welcome return to West Wight Arts Association on April 12th in the Memorial Hall, Freshwater with a solo piano recital starting at 7.00pm.

Hailed as a “trailblazer” by Steinway & Sons, Thomas Luke was the keyboard category winner of BBC Young Musician 2020. Equally adept at performing traditional concert repertoire as well as his own arrangements and compositions, he has performed worldwide and appeared on national television and radio.

Thomas has enjoyed great success recently, he was awarded the Prix Monti at the Piano Campus International Piano Competition in February and will return to the Piano Campus Festival in 2026 to perform a concerto as part of the award. He also won the Hopkinson Silver Medal and Peter Wallfisch Prize at the Royal College of Music’s Chappell Medal Piano Competition. He will play the Shostakovich Piano Quintet with the Piatti Quartet in Luton on March 17th following his collaboration with them for WWAA last season.

Thomas began piano lessons at the age of four with Judith Harvey, before continuing his studies with Eleanor Hodgkinson at the Junior Royal Academy of Music in London at the age of 12. In 2022, he won a full scholarship to study at London’s illustrious Royal College of Music, where he is now a Margaret Mount Scholar. He studies piano with Professor Vanessa Latarche and regularly receives guidance from Alim Beisembayev.

Thomas has given two full recitals for West Wight Arts Association before, in 2021 and 2023. In 2017 WWAA awarded him a bursary to help with travel up to the Junior Royal Academy of Music. We are delighted and proud to have him back.

He will play pieces by Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Beethoven, Liszt, Scriabin and one of his own compositions.

Tickets at £16.00 (£2.00 children and students) are available from our tickets page, or Totland Parish Office on 756028, booking fee applies.

Book soon as this concert is likely to sell out.

Steinway Grand Piano

The Steinway ‘B’ grand piano in the Memorial Hall, Freshwater, which belongs to West Wight Arts Association, is available for hire by arrangement with WWAA.

Please check the availability of the Memorial Hall with the administrator Debbie McAteer on memohall1960@gmail.com or 01983 752956 in the first instance and then email Richard Wilkins on wilkins.r@btinternet.com for further details.

West Wight Arts Association Bursary for young music students on the Island

Twelve young Island musicians have been awarded grants to further their musical studies by West Wight Arts Association.

The recipients range from 11 to 18 and played a wide variety of instruments or sang to a panel of WWAA trustees on Saturday February 24th. They also answered questions about their music making and what they would spend an award on; their answers ranged from help with funding further music lessons to better instruments or equipment.

The panel were treated to performances on piano, saxophone, drums, clarinet, oboe, violin, flute and voice from students from six different schools on the Island. The judges were deeply impressed by the standards achieved and the aspirations expressed by the musicians.

“ We had a wonderful response to our initial appeal for Island music students and it was very hard to shortlist applicants to start with. Then on the audition day it was very difficult to decide who our major award winners should be as the standard was so high, but we were able to give everyone something.”

— Pam Wedgwood - Organiser

“The concert was one of the best I have been to anywhere, the gut stringing added to their brilliant interpretation of the Mozart which was thrilling.”