Being invited here today led me to think back on the many times that I took part in this festival and how I have come to think of some of these occasions as being vitally formative to my life as a musician and as someone who has managed to begin to forge a career in the wider music industry.

The first and most vivid memory is from when I was 6 or 7, performing here in this building in public for one of the first times. I felt quietly confident. I had driven my parents to distraction by repeating the competition piece over and over again for weeks on end. I sauntered up to the piano, which had looked much more manageable from my seat at the back of the church and now became a dauntingly large, formidable and alien machine. I sat down, starting to tremble slightly, pretended to adjust the stool, put the book of music on the stand and waited to be told to start. The adjudicator said "when you're ready" and I began. At least I thought I began. After playing a couple of faltering notes it became clear that something was very wrong. I tried again. Still something wasn't right. Had I forgotten in that short walk from seat to stool all my practice of the proceeding weeks? Had I forgotten how to play the piano? Had I lost the motor function in my fingers? I looked around to find my teacher and instead found my parent waving frantically at me from halfway down the aisle. I was soon made to realise that I had placed the book of music on the stand open at entirely the wrong page and was attempting to sight-read something I had never seen or played in my life. Once this was resolved I was able to storm through the piece, disregarding all dynamics, tempo markings, and basic musicality and make a dash back to my seat.

This may well seem to be a rather unremarkable story, but it is a memory that has stuck with me and perhaps a similar event happened in this year's festival. It made me analyse my own weaknesses, made me want to work harder at improving those areas, and showed me that being a musician or a performer of any sort relies on being in control, within reason, in that crucial moment of communication with your audience.

It may not seem like it at the time, but the experience gained through performing at this festival will help to shape your futures as musicians, or indeed help form the way you deal with many situations in and out of your professional lives. Mainly, I hope that they will stay with you as fond and important memories for years to come.

I'd like to thank and congratulate all the performers in this year's festival, and wish the festival itself many, many more years of success.

As a pupil of the King's School, Grantham, Adam competed in the Grantham Music Festival as a pianist, violinist and percussionist, both solo and in numerous ensembles including string and flute quartets, jazz combos and big bands. Adam was a member and some-time principal violinist of the Lincolnshire County Music Service Orchestras and attended the Grantham Music School each Saturday throughout his time at King's. He went on to gain an honours degree in music (first class) at Royal Holloway University of London, where he continued to have a particularly active role in the live music scene both on campus and in London, performing with the university orchestras, contemporary music ensembles and big band as well as directing and performing in the orchestras for many student music theatre productions during his university years.

After graduating Adam moved to London to pursue a career in the music industry. After several internship placements and short-term roles with a music magazine, orchestra and agency, he gained a full-time position at The Agency Group - at the time the world's largest independent music agency - as the assistant to the agent handling the worldwide touring careers of some of the biggest jazz acts in the world. After two years the company was sold to Los Angeles-based United Talent Agency and overnight it became one of the top multi-discipline global talent agencies representing many of the world's most acclaimed figures in every current and emerging area of entertainment and media, including motion pictures, television, music, digital, broadcast news, books, theatre, video games, fine arts and live entertainment.

Adam continues to write and record music, performing regularly at jazz clubs and venues in London and around the UK with his jazz quartet, 'Phoenician Blinds'; he features on four albums to date as a session player.

My first music festival performance was at the age of 7, and it was also my public performance debut. I remember feeling excited about playing and really loved it! I won the 2 year beginners' woodwind class, and was hooked on performance. After that I entered a whole range of classes every year, including solo classes, ensemble classes (with school groups at KGGS and with the Grantham Music School) and the Festival became a pretty major performance event for me each year. I even entered some of the piano classes, despite my total lack of confidence in the piano, and later some of the composition classes. I don't think it is possible to overestimate the value of the experience I gained through performing at the festival every year for 11 years. It was undoubtedly an important part of my early performance career, and I will always be grateful to the organisers for making the opportunity available!

With a family home in Grantham, Eleanor cannot remember a single year without performing several times in the Grantham Music Festival! Looking back to life growing up in Grantham the Music Festival was a fundamental part of the annual calendar. I remember the whole experience as being nerve-wracking yet also exhilarating and inspirational. I have so many memories I could be a terrible bore but here are the most abiding recollections:

- listening to the announcers of each class.
- the nervous wait in the pews whilst you listened to the other competitors.
- the quiet noise at the back of the church as the calligraphers raced against the adjudicator to write out the certificates.
- the chance to hear other performers play, especially the most senior students as well as the entrants at the family class.

Looking back on the festival it was an incredibly important part of building performance experience as well as opening ones awareness to what other music was out there. I wish the festival all success for the future as it inspires the next 50 years worth of youngsters.

One of my first memories of the Grantham Music Festival was as a young beginner violin pupil. I played one of my Grade 1 pieces to an audience and adjudicating panel and suddenly I was performing music publicly for the first time.

This was totally different from playing for Graded Exams, or even from playing in assembly. This felt like the real deal. The challenge was to prove, not only to the audience, but to an expert, that I could really play the violin. If you have ever had a time when you've had no choice but to step up and show what you can do, you'll know it's one of the most thrilling experiences you'll ever have.

Grantham Music Festival then became an annual event for me and my family. They were the most welcoming people and the best community of music makers. Cutting through the competitive element is a genuine love of music, and admiration of those skills in musicians of all ages. What the Music Festival gave to me was a sense of passion for music, but also a platform for me to improve as a soloist and chamber musician. A learning space from which I could accept constructive feedback for my own work, and learn from the experiences of others around me who I was privileged enough to see perform.

Georgia is a passionate freelance violinist and teacher based in London. An experienced orchestral musician, she has performed in many of the UK's most prestigious concert halls, under the baton of such world-class conductors as Semyon Bychkov, Edward Gardner and Sir Mark Elder. Georgia studied with Professor Sophie Langdon at the Royal Academy of Music, where she completed her Masters with Distinction and was awarded the DipRAM for an outstanding final recital. She has since enjoyed a successful professional career with orchestras across London. As a chamber musician she led The Melanson Quartet, who were Davey-Posnanski Scheme participants 2014-15 and received a High Commendation at the Wolfe Wolfinsohn String Quartet Prize. Her interest in 20th century and contemporary music also inspired her involvement with the London Sinfonietta Academy Ensemble 2016 and Shadwell's Opera 2016 productions of Schoenberg's Erwartung and Turnage's Twice Through The Heart. Georgia continues to be fascinated with music and in making music with others, and is currently a member of the Southbank Sinfonia, most recently performing Korngold's Violin Concerto with them as part of their 2017 Rush Hour Concert Series.

I still remember how I felt sitting and waiting to perform at the Grantham Music Festival like it was only yesterday! That peculiar mixture of butterflies, excitement, nerves, fear, fun...all whilst trying to focus on the impending performance!

I started performing at the festival at Junior School and performed every year throughout my secondary education whether it be with a KGGS ensemble, as a soloist or in an ensemble setting.

The festival gave me such valuable experience in many aspects of my musical training. For me, the focus of working towards performing in a competition with constructive critique given by professional musicians was extremely useful and inspiring, not only listening to my own feedback was useful, but also the comments given to all the other performers.

Each class always had such a sense of occasion, and I believe it's so important to learn and experience the finer details when performing in public, such as performance practice, how to present oneself on stage, walking on/ off a stage, communicating with an audience and building and shaping performance style. These are all things that a platform such as the well respected Grantham music festival gave me and many other young musicians.

Having the opportunity to perform in such a beautiful venue as Finkin Street church is a really special privilege. Winning any of the classes I entered was an enormous achievement as the standard of entrants was always so high, and then being invited to collect a trophy or perform again at the trophy presentation concert was a huge and very exciting event!

I feel very grateful to all the experiences I've had and learned from at the Grantham Music Festival, and feel its had a big impact on my musical education.

Thank you Grantham Music Festival!

My Music Festival memory is very extensive. With Mum and Dad both being the main organisers when I was a child, I feel I spent all my childhood there under Finkin street roof and I loved every minute of it.

My first time performing there, I guess I must have been around 5 years old. I took part in EVERY class I could, every year until I moved to London to study my opera training.

I performed in the violin classes, piano classes, vocal classes, choir classes, woodwind classes. I also helped out as a runner and with tea and coffee in the breaks.

I went on to perform several recitals at Finkin Street once my vocal career kicked off. It has always been very important to me to keep in touch with the people in the town who guided me in my chosen career, many of whom I suspect will be here at the concert on March 17th [2012].

I was heartbroken when I heard Finkin Street was up for sale and so I am delighted that this didn't happen and I am getting to perform under this roof one more time.

I had several years coming to the Grantham Festival with my family from Nottingham. We always felt warmly welcomed, and it was wonderful to meet other young musicians and hear them play. The feedback from adjudicators and audiences was very helpful, and I learned so much from their ideas and observations. There are so many classes to choose from, and different aspects of performance and skill can be explored. Sometimes I would play a 'work in progress' to get useful ideas about how to develop what I was learning. Sometimes I would play something that had been thoroughly practised but would benefit from the test of live performance. Always, it was a valuable experience. Also, playing at the Festival concert was a great moment. Now, what I learned at successive Grantham Festivals stays with me. It was such an important part of my development as a musician.

Isata Kanneh-Mason is twenty years old and is an undergraduate at The Royal Academy of Music, studying piano with Hamish Milne, having been awarded the prestigious Sir Elton John Scholarship. She performed with Elton John in Los Angeles in 2013.

Isata was in the Piano Category Final of The BBC Young Musician 2014, winning The Walter Todds Bursary for the most promising musician before the Grand Final. She has won The Royal Academy Iris Dyer Piano Prize four times and won the Mrs Claude Beddington Prize for outstanding recital results in her second year as an undergraduate at The Royal Academy.

Isata held the Elsa and Leonard Cross Scholarship at The Royal Academy of Music, Junior Department, studying piano with Patsy Toh. She won two ABRSM Gold Awards at age 10 and 11 for the highest marks in the UK for grades 7 and 8 Piano.

She has performed around the UK and abroad, with concerto appearances, in chamber ensembles and in solo recitals, including at the Wigmore Hall, The Royal Festival Hall, St Martin-in-the -Fields, The Duke's Hall (Royal Academy), The Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham. Isata has future engagements in The Barbican Sound Unbound Festival, The Elgar Room at The Royal Albert Hall, Cheltenham Music Festival, Leicester International Chamber Music Festival, the Caribbean, The Cayman Islands and Canada. Isata plays the Schumann Piano Concerto with the Bardi Symphony Orchestra in Leicester in October 2017. She also plays viola, and is a member of Chineke! Orchestra, performing with them at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank and The Royal Festival Hall.

Isata has performed several times on BBC television and radio, including Radio 3 In Tune, The Proms Extra, Radio 4 Woman's Hour, Al Jazeera TV, BBC World Service, Channel 4, The One Show, the BBC4 documentary: Young, Gifted and Classical, ITV Born To Shine, and BBC Young Musician.

Isata is very grateful to the Nottingham Soroptimist Trust, the Nottingham Education Trust, to Mr and Mrs John Brydon, to Frank White of Ladystone Violins and to Sir Elton John.

As I was growing up the Grantham Music Festival gave me an invaluable opportunity to perform each year and the various classes allowed me to perform many different styles which was a fantastic benefit to my saxophone playing. I remember in my Upper 6th year at King's School I performed as a classical soloist; in various jazz bands (both large and small); with a couple of sax groups; a pop group; a wind band; and also a duo (which even managed to get "Happy Birthday" into a medley of jazz numbers!). Now how's that for diversification?!

Nicola is thrilled to be back at the Grantham Music Festival, where she made her first public performances in primary school, winning a number of trophies during her school years. It was here at Finkin Street that she received the advice of adjudicator and renowned vocal technician Coral Gould that set her on her chosen career path, a moment to be truly thankful for.

The Music Festival was, for me, integral to my future musical development. The Festival was one of the few opportunities for me to gain experience of performing from a young age, and with the invaluable adjudicator's comments in the inspiring setting of Finkin Street Church, it really was an indispensable part of my overall musical education.

When learning an instrument, it is all too easy to become holed up in a practice room, only focused on passing the next exam. What the Festival does is give the opportunity to actually perform something, to bring it out of your living room or bedroom or wherever and actually show something for the time you've spent practising, to communicate with and bring pleasure to others via music, which surely is why most of us do it in the first place.

And this is why the Music Festival is so important. By giving people the chance to perform music, it makes all the practice seem worthwhile - and given that the Festival is one of the biggest platforms for performance in Grantham, it's vital that the support for it continues; not just support from the committee and helpers (although without their extremely hard work, the festival wouldn't happen), but support from musicians themselves, for this is the reason the Festival exists. Personally, the confidence that the Music Festival gave me really did inspire me, and I can't see myself wanting to pursue the clarinet professionally without thinking of the support and opportunities that the Festival provided.

I regularly attended the Grantham Music Festival, first playing a quarter size cello, and eventually, through the years, graduating to a full size instrument. I came to Grantham Festival with my family from Nottingham every year, entering as many classes as I could, and learning skills that I have never left behind. When I did not win the first prize, or my performance did not go well, these experiences were just as valuable as winning. The Festival gave me a fantastic opportunity to play in front of an audience, to learn the art of performance, and to understand the importance of practise. Watching and listening to other young musicians was also very inspirational and very helpful.

Grantham Festival always had a good range of excellent instrumentalists to learn from. Now, when I give concerts, I draw on the things I learned as a child at Grantham Festival: concentration, playing from memory, focus and communication. Competition creates the drive to do the best you can and to strive for more. The Grantham Festival allowed me to practise the art of performance in an encouraging environment, and to receive feedback and advice in return. I will always have fond memories of my time at Grantham Festival.

Sheku is seventeen years old and is the Winner of BBC Young Musician 2016. He has won a full scholarship to The Royal Academy of Music from September 2017, studying with Hannah Roberts. Currently, Sheku holds the ABRSM Junior Scholarship to The Royal Academy of Music, where he studies cello with Ben Davies.

At the age of 9, Sheku gained the highest marks in the UK for ABRSM Grade 8 cello. He is winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Instrumentalist Duet Prize 2016. He is several times winner of the Lower Strings Prize and The Dame Ruth Railton Chamber Music Prize at The Royal Academy, as well as Gregynog Young Musician 2015 and winner of the Pro Corda Chamber Music Competition 2015. He held the international Junior Raphael Sommer Music Scholarship 2013 and is the Junior Ambassador for London Music Masters. He is also a member of Chineke! Orchestra.

Sheku has played throughout the UK, in the USA and has forthcoming concerts around the world, including Amsterdam, Zurich, The Caribbean, The Cayman Islands, Canada and Los Angeles.

He has performed several times on the BBC Radio 3 programme, In Tune, and has featured on Front Row and Saturday Live on Radio 4, The BBC World Service, Channel 4 Sunday Brunch, The Violin Channel (as featured artist), The Proms Extra (BBC2), Proms in the Park, and BBC Young Musician. He also featured in the BBC4 documentary: Young, Gifted and Classical, and The One Show (BBC1) and he performed at the BAFTAs in February 2017. Sheku has also appeared in many media publications, including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard, The Observer, The Music Teacher magazine, Classical Music Magazine and ESTA magazine.

Sheku has recently signed a major recording contract with Decca Classics, Universal, and has just released his first EP.

He plays a cello made by Antonius and Hieronymus Amati, c1610, kindly on loan from a private collection.