Seventeen-year-old pianist Ryan Wang is the winner of BBC Young Musician 2024. Wang is from Vancouver, Canada and is also a student on a music scholarship at Eton College, Windsor. At the Grand Final, Ryan performed Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, accompanied by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Ben Gernon. The competition’s final was presented by saxophonist and broadcaster Jess Gillam – a BBC Young Musician finalist herself in 2016. The judging panel included trumpeter Alison Balsom, pianist and composer Alexis Ffrench, and multi-instrumentalist and broadcaster Hannah Catherine Jones.

Wang started playing piano aged four and performed his first solo recital at Carnegie Hall aged five. He received his Artist Diploma at the École Normale de Musique de Paris in France in May 2024, being the youngest ever to win the Prix Cortot. He was also in the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s New Generation Piano series 2022-2023 and received the First Prize and audience award in the 18th Animato International Chopin Competition in February 2024.

Wang said: ‘This journey has been incredible. I still can't believe this is all happening! I have enjoyed sharing my music with you all so much and I am so grateful for all the support I have received! This competition experience has been so amazing, and I have been so fortunate to meet such incredible musicians.’

Alison Balsom said: ‘Ryan Wang is a truly remarkable musician. He has an extremely rare ability to communicate something other-worldly - and embody the music. I don’t think even he understands quite how he does it! In the final it was abundantly clear to all of us that he was creating a kind of magic. He generously raised the game of the orchestra too, and alongside his flawless technique, he was able to reveal his soul with such honesty.’

The final also included performances by BBC Young Musician 2024 finalists such as violinist Shlomi Shahaf, who was born in Israel and raised in Ukraine and is currently studying at Purcell School and Jacky Zhang from Surrey, a piano and composition student at the Royal College of Music. Previous BBC Young Musician winners include percussionist Jordan Ashman, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, violinist Nicola Benedetti, and clarinettist Mark Simpson.

Also returning in Autumn 2024 in its 10^th anniversary year is BBC Young Jazz Musician. During the final, taking place at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Saturday 23 November as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival and broadcast on BBC TV later in the Autumn, four finalists will compete for the title, all hoping to follow in the footsteps of BBC Young Jazz Musician 2022 winner double bassist Ewan Hastie.