Every year the Sondheim Society hold a Student Performer of the Year competition in a West End Theatre. This year it will be held at the Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, on Sunday 22nd May and will be hosted by Haydn Gwynne.
Haydn Gwynne played Mrs Winkinson in the musical Billy Elliot, for which she won an Olivier Award in the UK. On Broadway she was also lauded for this role and won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award and was nominated for a Tony in 2009.
For the Sondheim Performer of the Year Award every musical Theatre course in the UK chooses their best pupils to enter the competition, singing one song by Stephen Sondheim and a new musical song by a member of Mercury Musical Developments (MMD).
This is a very prestigious event for all musical theatre performers and can really kick start a career because the Sondheim Society try to nurture their winners and hold other events for them after they have won the competition. Alex Young, from the Royal Academy of Music's Post Grad Musical Theatre Course, won the award in 2010 with her rendition of Sondheim's Sunday in the Park With George. The Sondheim Society presented a concert with Alex Young at the Pheasantry (the stunning new Kings Road cabaret venue) in January 2011.
Haydn Gwynne played Mrs Winkinson in the musical Billy Elliot, for which she won an Olivier Award in the UK. On Broadway she was also lauded for this role and won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award and was nominated for a Tony in 2009.
For the Sondheim Performer of the Year Award every musical Theatre course in the UK chooses their best pupils to enter the competition, singing one song by Stephen Sondheim and a new musical song by a member of Mercury Musical Developments (MMD).
This is a very prestigious event for all musical theatre performers and can really kick start a career because the Sondheim Society try to nurture their winners and hold other events for them after they have won the competition. Alex Young, from the Royal Academy of Music's Post Grad Musical Theatre Course, won the award in 2010 with her rendition of Sondheim's Sunday in the Park With George. The Sondheim Society presented a concert with Alex Young at the Pheasantry (the stunning new Kings Road cabaret venue) in January 2011.
