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SUPER Sid Ramachander struck the right note with the judges and walked off with the coveted title of 'Young Musician of the Gulf 2008' at a thrilling final evening in Bahrain.
On Thursday evening, the 16-year-old St Christopher's School pupil demonstrated his prowess alongside six other advanced music student finalists.
They were pianist William Dib from New English School Kuwait, flautist Mengzhu Feng and santour player Shahin Khodei from British School of Kuwait, pianist Bernard Pereira and vocalist Charlotte Brear both from Dubai College.
The competition had started with 60 young musicians aged 18 and under from 13 different schools around the region including those from Cairo, Kuwait, Jeddah and Dubai hoping to win the crown.
Before presenting the award to Sid, from A'Ali, following his show-stopping performance, adjudicator David Campbell said: "While we are looking at the accuracy of the pieces, we were looking for that artist who could lift the music from the pages and project the voice of a master. And we found all those qualities in Sid's performance.
"He was like a chameleon - someone who can show the different colours of different composers."
And another adjudicator, Philip Mead, added: "It's unusual to be in a jury when decisions were made so quickly. Competitions are not just about spotting a winner. It's about raising standards and getting people to work towards something better than before."
An ecstatic Sid, who hopes to be a concert pianist one day, said: "Winning is not really the most important thing, to me it's about performing a good programme which I immensely enjoy.
"This award has firmed up my belief in pursuing a career in music and accepting all the risks and challenges it involves."
For his winning performance Sid played the Prelude and Fugue by Bach, Etudes by Chopin, and a sonata by Prokofiev. He said: "I believe my success lay in working hard and playing different styles of music. It takes six-months of intense preparation and all the pieces were some of the recent ones in my repertoire.
My programme included baroque music and pieces from the romantic and modern era."
Greatly encouraged by his parents, Christine and Ram, a banker in Bahrain, Sid has had the opportunity to be tutored by Maestro Evgeny Moguilevsky of the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels, Belgium.
Every summer Sid attends Master Classes in Embrun, France, with the Universite d'Ete Lions de la Musique.
The evening was especially momentous for St Christopher's School, the main organisers of the festival, who managed to clinch the title for the first time in 10 years of the festival's history.
Principal Edward Goodwin said: "On the four days of the festival 95 participating students took part in master classes, informal concerts and an orchestra. It displayed the extraordinary lengths that musicians can go to achieve musical prowess."
