Thoughts on winning Sussex Young Musician of the Year 2023

Eliette, aged 26, was crowned the winner of the contest, which is organised by Coro Nuovo, earlier this summer after she performed Bartok Rhapsody No 1 with her accompanist Soo-Hong Park (piano).

“It was great. I was so happy. But I think the winning is also important in terms of the support that Coro Nuovo offer.

"It means that I'll have more freedom in terms of supporting myself at quite a critical time in my career. I've just finished studying. Last summer I graduated from the Guildhall with my masters.

"That was six years of study in all which was really intense. I feel confident and grounded in my ability as a violinist now but finding your path in the music industry is something else. If you are from a background where people don't necessarily know the ins and outs of the music industry then the support that I'm going to get from Coro Nuovo is going to be so important. The (prize) money I might put it towards a bow. I don't have my own bow at the moment.”

Nor does she have her own violin but at the moment she has been entrusted with one which dates back to 1740: “It's a beautiful instrument.”

Its age doesn't necessarily add to the pressure for the simple reason that the pressure is always there: “And I think you would feel that whatever the instrument. After six years at music college you've had so many opinions every day from different professors about what you do that by the end you start to need to find your own voice. They teach you to inquire deeply into the music, why you are playing it in the way you do, why you are interpreting it in the way that you have and how to justify that interpretation but you have to be able to trust yourself as well – though I will always want comments!

“When you do auditions or competitions, something with a finite result, you're always trying to keep your focus on being sincere with the music.” If you start thinking about winning “then you start straying away and you start playing for the wrong reason. When you are trying to get work it's like you're auditioning all the time and it could be very easy to lose sight of the music.”

As for the competition Eliette found out she had won on the night.

"We performed as part of the concert with the choir, and by the end of the concert there was a bit of deliberation. We were all backstage but then the adjudicator gave us each her opinions on how we played and it was really useful.

“I grew up in Brighton and I played with all the youth orchestras there when I was younger. It is an amazing music service there and you can become involved in orchestras from a really young age, from six until you are 19 if you want to.

"It was incredible to do. I was really enjoying playing the violin, learning violin, going through the grades but to be playing with an orchestra really gives the whole thing context and helps bring it all alive.”

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