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Sheffield singer wins National Radio Competition Final

A Sheffield teenager has sung her way to success to be presented with the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Young Choristers Of The Year prize in this special Silver Jubilee anniversary year of the Competition. A chorister from Durham won the prize for the boys category.

Ella Taylor, aged 16, was awarded the Radio 2's Young Choristers Of The Year title at. The Grand Final which took place on Friday 29 October at St Paul's Cathedral in London. The show was hosted by Aled Jones, presenter of Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday. It will be broadcast on Sunday 7 November at 8.30-10pm on Radio 2.

Ella joined Sheffield Cathedral Choir at the age of ten whilst a pupil at Westways Primary School in Sheffield. She has enjoyed tours with the Cathedral Choir to Germany, France and Hungary and has also broadcast regularly with them on BBC Radio 3. She thoroughly enjoyed her time as a cathedral chorister and has benefited from singing lessons from Vivien Pike in the last two years, as well as the support she has received from the David Clover Competition for young singers, under whose auspices she won the Intermediate Recital prize and also the Sacred Song prize in March 2010. She left the Cathedral choir in July 2010 to take up a music scholarship at Lancing College in Sussex. She also played violin in the string ensemble Highly Strung (led by Martin Cropper) while she was a pupil at Tapton school. Following a recent Eton Choral Course she has been invited to join the prestigious Rodolfus Choir. Ella’s interests extend beyond classical music and she has sung in the backing group for local band Screaming Maldini during the last year. She enjoys badminton, swimming and watching films to relax.

The Director of Music at Sheffield Cathedral, Neil Taylor, said, “We are delighted about this fantastic news – Ella was a wonderful asset to the Cathedral Choir, and all of us at the Cathedral are over the moon about the result.”