A year 13 student at Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire got the chance to play the Organ at the Royal Albert Hall.
Eric Chan who is from Hong Kong joined the college as a full time boarder in year 9 and was already a grade 8 violin player.
He was recently awarded his ATCL associate diploma from Trinity College of Music on the Piano, and took his Grade 8 Organ last summer; during the same time he gave his debut Organ recital in Melton Mowbray Parish Church. Following this, he was asked to give a number of other concerts. Word quickly spreads, since he was offered the opportunity to perform on the Organ at the Royal Albert Hall, where another Ratcliffe’s Head Girl and recent recipient of an offer to read Engineering at Oxford, Sally Croysdale, was also performing in the Youth Proms as principal clarinettist.
Eric’s Organ teacher and Director of Music at Ratcliffe College, Mr Edward McCall said, “We are extremely fortunate to have students of Eric’s calibre and his success underlines the opportunities which stem from a deep and rounded musical education. Eric will be a huge success as his career in music progresses”.
Eric has recently accepted a place at the Royal College of Music to study this September, focussing jointly on piano and organ. In the meantime, Eric will be kept busy giving recitals and playing concerts, including Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the Music Department, along with the choir and chamber orchestra, where the majority of the musicians performing are already of Grade 8 standard.
