17-year-old Ethan Loch has won the Keyboard Category of this year’s BBC Young Musician of the Year.

The Keyboard Final was was recorded in early July at Saffron Hall in Saffron Walden, Essex, and was broadcast on BBC Four last night (Thursday 6 October). The other keyboard finalists were pianists Dida Condria (19), Duru Erdogan (18), Firoze Madon (18) and Jacky Zhang (14).

The Keyboard Category finalists, from left to right: Duru Erdogan, Firoze Madon, Jacky Zhang, Dida Condria, Ethan Loch

The expert panel of judges for the Keyboard Final included pianist and composer Tom Poster and pianist and BBC Young Musician 1992 finalist Daniel Tong. They joined organist, director of music at Pembroke College, and broadcaster Anna Lapwood, chair of all the BBC Young Musician 2022 Category Final judging panels.

Ethan joins viola player Jaren Ziegler, flautist Sofía Patterson-Gutiérrez, trumpeter Sasha Canter, and percussionist Jordan Ashman in the Grand Final, which is set to be broadcast on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3 on Sunday 9 October having already been recorded at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on Thursday 29 September. Each finalist will perform a concerto with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Mark Wigglesworth in front of an expert jury chaired by Anna Lapwood and including BBC Radio 3’s Editor for Live Music Emma Bloxham, Southbank Centre’s Head of Classical Music Toks Dada, conductor Ben Gernon, and sitar player, composer and producer Anoushka Shankar.