FRASER Rowe was the winner of a new prize set up in memory of inspirational award-winning music advisor Alan Pickard, who died last year.
The 10-year-old, who is taught by his mum, private piano teacher Lindsay Rowe, won the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music’s Alan Pickard Award. Two prizes are awarded to the candidates who achieved the highest on-island examination score with the ABRSM on any instrument: Grades one to five, and grades six to eight.
Fraser, of Pickard Close in Castletown, who was nine when he took the exam, scored 141 to gain a distinction in grade one piano. He received a cheque for £75.
His mum Lindsay said: ‘My student won the prize for grades one to five by obtaining the highest overall score for any instrument examined between those grades in 2011.
Delighted
She added: ‘I was especially delighted that the student in question is, in fact , my youngest son, Fraser Rowe, who is now 10 years old.’
Alan Pickard was Department of Education music adviser for 17 years, between 1978 and 1995.
In 2008, he was given a special award for his 30 years of service to music in representing the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in the Isle of Man.
He was also an international examiner for the board who oversaw the examinations for more than 600 ABRSM candidates each year in the island.