The Year Six Blanchelande College pupil auditioned for the ISA Young Musician Competition in the autumn of 2025, and will head to St Hilda’s College, Oxford, to perform in the competition finals later this month.
‘I’m very terrified but excited,’ he said of his upcoming performance.
‘I think the excitement overpowers the terror.’
Ayaan has been playing the piano for some five years, and said that he has always loved music. He competed for the first time at the Eisteddfod last spring of 2025, to some success, as his performance of Whirling Leaves by Edna Burnam won him the Marjorie Guillemette Cup, a trophy given to the pianist showing most promise in the Eisteddfod’s Junior Section. He played the same piece to secure his place in the ISA Young Musician final.
‘Honestly, I was almost sure that he would make it,’ said Blanchelande music teacher Elena Fedorenko, who is also Ayaan's personal piano teacher.
‘It’s not just because of his talent, but all the hard work he puts into it.
‘He could practise all day and not get tired of it.’
Ms Fedorenko has been teaching Ayaan the piano since he joined Blanchelande two years ago. She said that he had a talent not only for learning or playing music, but for performing it.
‘His talent was very clear from the first lesson.
‘He can reflect the image, the whole picture of what the music’s about, without having to be told to,’ she said.
‘He also has the rare quality of being very natural on the stage and in that atmosphere.’
Despite his natural flair for performance, though, the thought of an in-person solo at the ISA finals remains a daunting prospect to Ayaan – significantly more so than his audition.
‘I was not very nervous at all for the audition, because if it went wrong I could just record it again,’ he said.
There is no chance of that, however, at the finals, and the difficulty may be raised still further by Ayaan's decision to play a different piece.
He will, though, be sticking with musical repertoire based on windy weather, as he will be performing Tim Brown’s ‘Approaching Storm’ for the finals in March.
‘He would like to always be improving,’ said Ms Fedorenko.
‘I hope he will stay with music for his whole life.’
The ISA Young Musician Competition is constituted of two rounds – an initial audition stage, and a final.
Ten finalists are chosen from each age category – Junior, Middle and Senior – who then go on to compete live. Ayaan is one of the 10 junior finalists, who are all in between the school years three and six.
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