Emily Winsor - Theatre in Silhouette

The art of shadow hand puppetry was popularized by the magicians of the 19th century, being a more common spectacle than it is today due to the lack of electric lights. There is still something in it that appeals to a childlike sense of amusement and wonder that is absent in many other forms of entertainment.

This piece aims to embody the innate response of how we compensate for lack of visual input with our own imagination. A single musical line gets distorted and shaped by some undetectable drama. Shapes and shadows transformed by our mind become colourful animated creatures.

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Emily is enjoying her second year studying Music at the University of Manchester. Her musical interests include contemporary, Classical and electroacoustic music, as well as continuo playing in her music society's Baroque orchestra. She also regularly plays violin in numerous pit bands and ensembles including the National Youth Chamber Orchestra in 2014. Having achieved an LTCL piano diploma at age 17, she performs in recitals, tours and piano concertos. Emily has been a runner up in the 2016 Bristol's Young Composer Award and since coming to University has had various compositions performed within the music department.

Max Mitchell - Sketches for Orchestra

While writing Sketches for Orchestra, I wanted to experiment with harmony with inspiration for some of the harmonic material coming from late Postromantic music. Often, in order to generate new melodic material, the melody from the opening three bars is split into fragments and reordered. Throughout the composition process, I wanted to make sure to explore a range of textures. Notable textures in the piece include the solo oboe at the beginning which builds to the entire string and woodwind section and, at the end of the piece, the orchestral tutti section.

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Max Mitchell is currently studying composition on the Bachelor of Music programme at the Royal College of Music under Kenneth Hesketh where he is a Douglas and Hilda Simmonds Scholar. He was a finalist for the NMSW Young Composers' Prize 2016 and has twice been shortlisted for the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers' Competition. His piece 'One of Them is a Human' was been performed at the National Portrait Gallery and, as a member of the NMSW Young Composers' Academy, his works have been performed by the Bristol Ensemble and Kokoro Ensemble.

Sebrina Lambert-Rose - Chimerical: Short Scenes from Childhood Tales

The dictionary definition of "chimerical" is "something that its wildly fanciful or imaginative – like the illustrations of magical creatures in a picture book". "Chimerical: Scenes from Childhood Tales", is a collection of musical sketches which depict short yet fantastical scenes from an old childhood book of fairytales I recently found.

I have never composed for an orchestra before. The whole process has been incredibly exciting and new, and I have been able to discover new sound-worlds from my own imagination. In keeping with the theme of discovery, the scenes I have illustrated in my music depict those where a character is discovering or witnessing something completely fantastical and marvelous.

The opening section illustrates Elisa, from the tale of The Wild Swans, who is being flown across a vast ocean by twelve swans who were once her brothers. She glimpses during this journey the lofty castle of the fairy Morgana, surrounded by glittering icy mountains in the sky, before the swans begin their descent. This is then followed by a waltz, which portrays the scene from the 12 Dancing Princesses where a prince, disguised in his cloak, is secretly following the twelve princesses through gardens with trees of silver, gold and diamonds, before arriving at a magnificent palace where the princesses go to dance at a ball each night.

This is interrupted by a scene of a more compassionate nature. The prince from the tale of Rapunzel, blinded by thorns and wandering lost, is discovered by Rapunzel in the forest where she hiding. Her tears, which fall upon his eyes at their reunion, revive his sight and he is able to see her again. The solos in the flute and clarinet portray the tender dialogue between them.

The final section of Chimerical depicts the scene, from the popular tale The Snow Queen, where Gerda has arrived at the magnificent palace to rescue her friend Kay, and she discovers him there alone on the polished ice. The two escape and return home victorious.

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Sebrina is currently in her third year at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, studying for a BMus in Cello, and also composition as a module. She began showing an interest in composition when she was very little, and since then has gone on to partake in numerous projects and competitions. In 2013, she participated in the Soundtrack to my Life project based in St Monica's, Bristol. In 2014, Sebrina was a finalist in the Bath Film Festival Filmscore competition, and this led on to more film-scoring opportunities, such as a commission for the short feature film Letters Home. It was released in 2015, and since it has been screened at multiple theatres and events around Wales, it has won numerous awards, including Best Welsh Short for the Cardiff International Film Festival in 2017. She was also a finalist in the Birmingham Conservatoire Composition Competition in 2015. Sebrina has a couple of commissions in place over the next year, and is hoping to further her composition studies once she graduates from college.