The Croser-Hughes award is an annual competition for the performance of Chamber Music with keyboard. The competition was started over 20 years ago by two former piano tutors to encourage students to explore the vast range of interesting chamber music that is available.

The competition is held at the University of Surrey earlier in the week. This is always a highly-charged event, as a guest adjudicator is invited to have the final say and make the Award. The repertoire is really varied and excellent performances make judging a winner very difficult.

We present the winners and highly commended from the competition.

Our usual evening devoted to music students from the University of Surrey featuring Award Winners from the Croser-Hughes Chamber Music with piano competition was unfortunately cut short through illness and, as a consequence, a programme of only three items was played on Friday 8th February. However what was lost in quantity was adequately compensated for in quality and the abilities of these young musicians never fails to amaze.

Both the first movements from the Rimsky Korsakoff Wind Quintet written in 1876 and the Trio Op.27 of Edouard Destenay, completely different in style from each other, were brought to life with exciting vibrant playing from the young pianists and wind players and provided a fine first half to the evening's entertainment. To finish, another group of students played the first movement of Brahms' Quintet Op.34 with piano, violins, viola and cello. A difficult work well played but overall perhaps not quite intonationally accurate or convincing as were the two wind ensembles, although there was still ample rhythmic drive to provide an enjoyable performance.