Teenage violinist Sofia Demetriades has won the BBC Young Musician competition 2026, in the first all-female final in the event’s 48-year history. The 18-year-old from Leicestershire is in her first year of undergraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music. The judges Joanna MacGregor, Ben Gernon and Errollyn Wallen praised her performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto as full of insights, poetry and maturity.
MacGregor called Demetriades a simply extraordinary musician, saying she performs with her eyes and achieves dizzying technical feats while appearing to enjoy the music. The judge also highlighted her sense of colour, musical style and architecture, combined with effortless technique, and said her sensitivity and sophistication stood out in every round. MacGregor added that she was excited to watch Demetriades’s musicianship develop further.
The biennial BBC competition was the brainchild of Humphrey Burton and was set up in 1978. Its finalists have included Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Alison Balsom, Stephen Hough and Nicola Benedetti, who won in 2004 and was the last violinist to take the title. Demetriades was one of several hundred applicants who sent in a video; 40 young players were selected for live auditions at Bath Spa University, with eight places in the quarter-finals. The quarter-finals took place on her 18th birthday. Among her fellow quarter-finalists was 14-year-old Sylvester Maschi, the first accordion player to reach the final stages.
In the final, each of the three finalists performed a concerto with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Alpesh Chauhan, at Bristol Beacon. Kezia Colton, an 18-year-old saxophone player, performed Takashi Yoshimatsu’s 1994 Cyber Bird Saxophone Concerto, while 17-year-old recorder player Alma Nunez Debretzeni played Graham Fitkin’s Recorder Concerto. The Fitkin work uses six different recorders, from a contrabass about 1.6 metres high to the smallest sopranino. It was originally commissioned by Debretzeni’s teacher, Barbara Law, and premiered in 2017 by 2014 Young Musician finalist Sophie Westbrooke. Jordan Ashman, the 2022 overall winner, joined Colton onstage for the Yoshimatsu concerto.
Wallen said Colton played with ‘incredible verve and spirit’, while Gernon described her performance as ‘sassy and cool’ but also noted the strength of her more intimate playing. The judges praised the ‘electricity, aliveness, and beautiful intensity’ that Debretzeni brought to Fitkin’s concerto; Wallen said she took the judges on a musical journey and that they were inside every note. Debretzeni said that before the competition she had not planned to become a musician and had wanted to study psychology, but the experience had inspired her to pursue music and had been life-changing.
As winner, Demetriades receives the trophy, £3,000 towards music studies, and recording and broadcast opportunities on Radio 3, including with one of the BBC ensembles. All three finalists will work with the Young Classical Artists Trust on managing their future careers. Demetriades said she was honoured and thrilled to have been part of BBC Young Musician, and that playing in the quarter-final on her 18th birthday had been a highlight. She said being crowned winner was her absolute dream and that it was a pure delight to share the stage with BBC NOW, Alpesh Chauhan and her fellow finalists, adding that she hoped to play alongside them again soon.
Sources: The Guardian World.