18-year-old Jordan Ashman has won BBC Young Musician 2022, becoming the second successive percussionist to achieve the title of BBC Young Musician after Fang Zhang won the 2020 competition last May.

Performing American composer Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto, with BBC Philharmonic conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, the event made history - the first time a winning BBC Young Musician concerto was written by a woman.

• Watch the BBC Young Musician Final

Ashman, from Milton, Cambridgeshire, began playing the drum kit at the age of 7 and subsequently expanded into orchestral percussion. Currently studying at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, he has played with both National Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, the ensemble who’s performance opened our Gramophone Awards on Tuesday evening.

Chaired by organist, broadcaster and social media sensation, Anna Lapwood, the judging panel included 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 Anoushka Shankar.

Anna Lapwood described watching Ashman perform: ‘Jordan Ashman’s performance started not with loud, flashy playing, but with exquisite, gentle beauty. He held the entire room throughout that delicate opening and kept that magic through his whole performance.’

Ashman’s hope is that his performance changed perceptions, saying, ‘playing to so many people in the Bridgewater Hall and Saffron Hall was breath-taking … I hope that I have greatly increased people’s understanding of percussion and that they can see how vibrant, virtuosic, expressive and dynamic the percussion can be.’