BBC Young Musician: Percussionist Jordan Ashman wins 2022 contest

Eighteen-year-old percussionist Jordan Ashman has won the BBC's prestigious Young Musician competition.

He took the title after performing Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto, requiring him to play drums, marimba, vibraphone and even a car's brake drum.

Anna Lapwood, chair of the judging panel, said his "emotional" performance "made all of us catch our breath".

Ashman joins previous Young Musician winners including cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and violinist Nicola Benedetti.

The teenager, from Milton, Cambridgeshire, started playing drums at the age of seven, expanding into orchestral percussion a year later, after building a 3.5-octave xylophone with his father.

"Obviously they're quite expensive," he said. "So my dad, being an engineer, was a bit like, 'We'll just make one'."

He has played with the National Children's Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Brass Band, and is currently studying at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Ashman was lost for words when his victory was announced, but managed to thank his family and friends in the audience.

"Getting support from home, it's just [incredible]", he told host Jess Gillam, herself a finalist in the 2016 Young Musician competition.

Later, after gathering his thoughts, Ashman said taking part in the contest had been "very scary" but "really exciting".

"I really feel like it's a great opportunity to show what percussion can do," he added. "A lot of people think on percussion you're at the back booming away, but it's so versatile."

The musician beat viola player Jaren Ziegler, flautist Sofía Patterson-Gutiérrez, trumpeter Sasha Canter and pianist Ethan Loch from Glasgow, who has been blind since birth.

Each of the musicians won their individual category competitions before progressing to the grand final, at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall.

The contest was filmed on 29 September, with the results revealed on BBC Four and BBC Radio Three on Sunday night.

"All five finalists demonstrated a bravery and commitment to excellence that was incredibly moving," said Lapwood, who is director of music at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Describing the winner, she added: "Jordan Ashman's performance started not with loud, flashy playing, but with exquisite, gentle beauty.

"He held the entire room throughout that delicate opening and kept that magic through his whole performance. Jordan combined emotional expression with an easy, assured technique, and moments of brilliance that made all of us catch our breath."

Ashman is only the third percussionist to win the biannual Young Musician competition, after Adrian Spillet in 1998, who is now principal percussionist of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; and Fang Zhang, who won the 2020 title in May last year, after the original final was delayed due to the pandemic.