YOUNG Forest composer Ryan Probert is celebrating winning a top European music prize, ahead of having a new work performed at Leicester Cathedral this weekend.

The 25-year-old former Wyedean School pupil took away the Nationaal Jeugd Orkest prize from the 23rd International Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn, Holland.

Mr Probert, from Clearwell, composed a piece called Five Broken Pieces for the competition, played by the Orkest de Ereprijs, and part of his prize is to compose a new work for the Dutch national youth orchestra.

“It was amazing to be one of the last 16 finalists out of the hundreds who entered, but winning was beyond my imagination,” he said.

“You only have one chance to attend the meeting, so when the realisation of getting the prize hit me I was in tears, knowing this was a real achievement.

“I’m really excited to be working with the Nationaal Jeugd Orkest and one of the sweetest moments was being presented with a painting, painted by one of the orchestra’s members after winning.”

Mr Probert graduated from the Birmingham Conservatoire in 2014 with a degree in composition and has previously praised his former Tutshill school for igniting his interest in music.

“During my time at Wyedean, I first became interested in composition,” he said. “With the teachers’ encouragement they helped form my primordial interest in composition into my main interest, and eventually my career, which has enriched my life boundlessly. Without this support I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

The Daily Telegraph has praised his compositions as “authentically of the present moment in their lightness and stubborn eccentricity… charmingly Satie-like in their oddity.”

He twice won the Birmingham Conservatoire’s John Mayer Prize, for his piece Resonance of Words in 2012, and for Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, written for the Vickers-Bovey guitar duo in 2013.

The duo, who have performed at the Wigmore Hall in London, will be performing his new piece The Fields Where Silence Has Lease this Saturday, March 4, at Leicester Cathedral.

The work was commissioned by the BBC as part of its StoryFest finale, and will also be performed closer to home

at Gloucester’s Wotton House on Thursday, March 9.  

“The BBC commission came about after the concert organiser heard my previous piece for the same guitar duo on their CD,” explained Mr Probert. “I hope the piece connects with the past and current history of the cathedral, particularly relating to Richard III.”