Sergio A. Mims: Jonathon Heyward Awarded “Young Talent Award” by 2020/21 UK Critics

Jonathon Heyward

Sergio A. Mims writes:

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Conductor Jonathon Heyward was awarded last week with the the “Young Talent Award” by the 2020/21 UK Critics’ Circles Music Awards for triumphantly overcoming the hardships and challenges of the last two years and making significant breakthroughs in his career.

Guy Rickards from The Critics’ Circle writes, “American by birth (from Augusta, Georgia), Jonathon Heyward is proving an indispensable asset to British musical life. In 2020-21, he conducted Hannah Kendall’s The Knife of Dawn at Covent Garden, championed Elgar in Germany, and made a rapturously acclaimed Proms debut with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in a scintillating performance of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti, and a “fast and fearless… exuberant” Eroica conducted from memory. His rapport with the young players was manifest throughout. Equally at home in Stravinsky as in Haydn and Dvořák, Jonathon Heyward seems the complete musician.”