Semi-Final

BBC Young Musician 2014 reaches its penultimate stage, the semi-final. Over the past weeks there have been some outstanding performance from 25 talented and dedicated young musicians. Now the winners of the strings, percussion, woodwind, keyboard and brass category finals compete against each other for three places in the final at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh.

Making the all-important decisions are Jessica Cottis, assistant conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; Michael Garvey, director of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales; composer Dobrinka Tabakova; and Meurig Bowen, director of the Cheltenham Music Festival. Classical guitarist Milos and trumpet player Alison Balsom (herself a BBC Young Musician Finalist in 1998) take us behind the scenes of the competition at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, presenting extensive highlights from the semi-finalists' recital performances.