Following two days of adjudication involving over 300 entries, the 12th Abingdon Music Festival, which is held at the School of St Helen and St Katharine in Abingdon, culminated in an outstanding festival concert.

It featured highlights of the festival performances with a varied programme including children and adults, soloists and ensembles, and a notable level of musicality displayed, even by the youngest children playing short pieces.

Given almost 40 accomplished performances, on harps (see Glissandi, pictured), violin, cello, piano, clarinet, recorder, flute, saxophone and guitar, as well as singing, one hesitates to single any out.

But special mention must be made of Osman Tack, whose stunning performance of the last movement of Beethoven’s Waldstein piano sonata ended the concert on a note of wonder. He had earlier joined David Mears (clarinet) and Ben Etherton (cello) in an impressively mature account of the first movement of Brahms’s Trio (Op. 144). Julian Bacharach showed admirable commitment in his performance of Francis Pott’s tone poem for piano Farewell to Hirta. Of the younger performers, I particularly enjoyed ten-year-old Mila Ferramosca’s playing of the first movement of Vivaldi’s A minor violin concerto.

Now under the chairmanship of Rosemary Joseph, the AMF had a record number of entries this year, mainly from Oxfordshire, and has established itself as an important fixture on the local music scene.

The musical talent on display is a tribute to the dedication of teachers, parents and children in making Oxfordshire such a centre for musical excellence. Long may it thrive!

John Bates