Exceptional Cellist Awarded Prestigious Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship at Bristol

Published by Brentwood School on Wednesday 1st of May 2024

Upper Sixth student Alex, a gifted cellist, is a stalwart of the school’s sector-leading Performing Arts Department, playing a multitude of instruments as well as being a keen vocalist and actor. He will follow in the footsteps of Old Brentwood, Sammy Li, who won the same competitive award last year.

The Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship supports new undergraduate students with exceptional musical, dramatic or sporting talent outside their field of academic study, which in Alex’s case will be a degree in Medicine.

The young virtuoso’s exceptional skill, and the countless hours of hard work poured into perfecting his every note, is certainly paying off. In 2023, Alex was crowned winner of the prestigious Essex Young Musician of the Year competition - the second year in a row the accolade has been awarded to a Brentwood School musician. And in March, he stole the spotlight as the soloist in Dvořák's Cello Concerto, accompanied by the Brentwood School Symphony Orchestra, at Brentwood Cathedral.

Up to 20 awards of up to £3,000 are made each year by the University of Bristol and the scholarship is awarded for three years of study. Sammy, who is reading Mathematics, returned to her alma mater only last week to give a talk to future Maths students. She said the scholarship had ‘opened many doors for her’.

Mr Florian Cooper, the proud Director of Performing Arts and Music at Brentwood School, said: ‘It has been a tremendous privilege to watch Alex grow as a musician over many years at Brentwood School and his performance of the Dvořák Cello Concerto in March was perhaps the highest quality single student performance in the school’s history. Alex’s successes in music are the result of very hard work over a sustained period of time and, coupled with a phenomenal musical mind, he continues to develop as one of the foremost young musicians in the country. We are very excited to see what he will achieve at Bristol university and are thrilled that the music department at Bristol is becoming an outpost for the Old Brentwood music community!’