CHANGES are in store for the Mrs Sunderland Music Festival which should further enhance this historic event’s already wide appeal.

The countdown has already begun for next year’s festival which runs from February 20 to 28. And festival organisers have decided for the first time to run the prestigious and popular Kirklees Young Musician of the Year contest as a separate, stand-alone event.

The timing of this much-admired part of the festival has, on occasions, meant audiences having to miss other, key Mrs Sunderland events in order to follow the final moments of this often closely contested contest.

Next year, the Kirklees Young Musician will be crowned on a Sunday afternoon, February 15 in St Paul’s Hall where top young singers and musicians will compete for prizes worth £1,700.

With the backing of the University of Huddersfield’s music department, of Kirklees Council and of the J W Pearce Trust, the Mrs Sunderland has again increased the prize money awarded to winners.

The young musician who takes the title will received £1,000 with £500 for the runner-up and a third prize of £200.

The Kirklees Young Musician of the Year contest is open to music students aged between 16 and 25 who are aiming for a professional career in music. Entrants must have been born in, or have lived in Kirklees for five years or more, or have been music students within the area for more than a year.

This switching of the Young Musician to a stand-alone contest is the year’s biggest new departure for a festival which was founded in 1889 and named in honour of Brighouse-born soprano Susan Sunderland. But there are other innovations in an event which like so many others, has to look to the future.

The festival’s speech and drama classes receive a shot in the arm with an additional workshop event which will be run later this month in conjunction with Huddersfield Children’s Library. The workshop will be on October 29, will be led by Dave Webb and there will be more details later.

A separate syllabus is being published for speech and drama teachers which it is hoped will encourage more local schools to get involved.

Dr Damien Harrion, of the percussion group Backbeat, will adjudicate the percussion and African drumming classes which will move in the next festival from their old base in the university’s recital hall to a new venue on the campus. Damien Harrion, a percussionist and composer, studied at the university.

The festival will again culminate in a gala finals evening on February 28 and will feature the Choirs Prize Challenge, plus the return of some of the week’s most outstanding performers as well as the winner of the Young Musician of the Year award. The gala evening will be compered by Kirklees Borough Organist, Dr Gordon Stewart.

Syllabuses are available from Dolphin Music on Huddersfield’s Market Street, at the information centre in Albion Street or from Octave Above in Old Wakefield Road, Moldgreen. Details are also available on the festival website www.mrs-sunderlandmusic.org.uk