Sussex Young Musician of the year joins Festival of Chichester

Zoe will be at the Festival of Chichester for a concert at The Regis School of Music, Bognor on Saturday, July 8 at 7.30pm when she presents a diverse programme of guitar solos for the West Sussex Guitar Club, inspired by the folklore of Brazil, Iran and Catalonia. Tickets: £15, students: £8, children: free.

“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.

"Every concert is important but you just can't control all the circumstances all the time. It's actually all about the mindset and it just made me really focus on the fact that it's just about getting in a good mental space before I perform and then I can actually cut myself some slack when it comes to putting pressure on myself. It's a really pressurising situation especially when you're performing with a solo instrument and you can get bogged down with the inner questions: ‘Am I good enough?’ ‘I can't control this!’ ‘It is all going to go so wrong!’ But the fact is that it never does, and I think that has to be the starting point for when you perform so it was a really useful lesson to learn.”

Zoe is currently studying for a Masters at the Royal College of Music but soon she will be heading to the Netherlands to study before returning next year to finish her Masters in London.

“They have got a really amazing faculty in The Hague. I just wanted to put myself out there and get myself out of my comfort zone. I'm just so comfortable in London! And I'm going to be super sad to be leaving London but I'm also very, very excited at the next chapter and just to see how it will work. I think I need to do it for my inner personal growth.

"I'm super under-prepared for it at the moment but it's going to be a great thing to do. The guitar world is so small anyway that everyone seems to be connected and I know some of the teachers that are working there and I've had friends that have gone there before so it's not a complete unknown. And then I will be coming back to London to finish my Masters.”

Ticket for the concert are available from the Festival of Chichester box office.

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