A 17-year-old Chinese-born percussionist has taken the title of BBC Young Musician of 2020 in a delayed contest, and he told Xinhua that the victory means “a very important milestone and a good start.”

Zhang Fang, from Central China’s Henan Province and a current student at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester in the U.K., won the final contest with a performance of Keiko Abe’s marimba concerto “Prism Rhapsody,” which required him to play with six mallets simultaneously.

Zhang has become the second percussionist to ever win BBC Young Musician, the last of which was Adrian Spillett who won the competition in 1998.

In the televised national music competition, which was held at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on April 25 after one-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhang competed with 18-year-old French horn player Annemarie Federle and 19-year-old oboist Ewan Millar, reported the BBC. He was accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Mark Wigglesworth.

His playing “elicited a kaleidoscope of colors and expression” that “deeply moved the jury,” said Angela Dixon, who chaired the judging panel.

Zhang started learning percussion at the age of 7 and went to the U.K. to study music in 2018 with a full scholarship.

“For me this victory is a very important milestone and a good start,” he said.

He expressed his gratitude to the music schools he attended both in China and the U.K. and especially thanked his father for his great support and company during his participation in international music competitions over the past years.

Zhang has been performing around the world since he was 11 and is a member of the China Youth Percussion Orchestra.

Besides the marimba, he also plays snare drum timpani and vibraphone and has won competitions including the China Youth Percussion Competition, the New York International Percussion Competition and the Tokyo International Percussion Competition.

For his future plans, the young musician said he would seize more competition and performance opportunities to improve his skills as well as to help more people enjoy percussion.

“I would like to have my own percussion band after graduation,” he said.

The BBC Young Musician competition was established in 1978 and added the percussion category in 1994, alongside the existing keyboard, string, brass and woodwind categories. The biennial competition has five stages: regional auditions, category auditions, category finals, semi-finals and the final.

BBC Young Musician has helped launch the careers of dozens of leading musicians, including cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, violinist Nicola Benedetti and clarinettist Mark Simpson — but very few percussionists have ever taken home the top prize. Colin Currie is one of the most famous percussionists to ever take part in the competition, but he lost out to cellist Natalie Clein in 1994. （Xinhua-Agencies)