Winning the Sussex Young Musician title in 2022 brought important and unexpected lessons for Zoe Barnett who returns to the county to give a guitar recital for the Festival of Chichester on Saturday 8 July at the Regis School of Music.
“The Sussex Young Musician competition was amazing. It feels like so long ago but it was such a special day. I was at a concert in Wales in the morning and that was really, really fun but then I had to trek all the way back to London because the trains were cancelled to Burgess Hill and then I had to get down to Burgess Hill from there and I was trying to manage my nerves for the competition.
“I always like to be very prepared and I like to play a lot during the day of a competition but I couldn’t because I was stuck on the train. I remember thinking at that point that I’m just going to have to let go all my feelings and just go with it. It taught me a lot.
“It taught me that I can’t control every single performance and every single thing about it. It taught me not to put so much pressure on myself about the actual day. And I think I’ve since really developed that side of my thought process before performing and about performing. It’s just about letting everything go.”
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