Haley has spent a total of a little more than 8 years to learn the harp from scratch. She had her LTCL qualified at 95% when she was 11 years old before recently getting ther FTCL approved at the age of 15 when she is also busy with her A-level course (she’s 1-2 years ahead of her cohort in her school and so she’s already a sixth former).

It has not been easy for Haley. She had been having online lessons for 2 years during Covid until early last year when she totally stopped all lessons to better prepare for her GCSE exam. She decided to go for the FTCL qualification exam in August 2022, and had only seen me twice for lessons before the assessment on February 3, 2023. She has worked the way out mostly by herself for this FTCL qualification, developing high level of skills, techniques and musicality with limited help from any teacher.

She’s been polishing her stage charisma via participating in various high-level professional competitions and performances, including delivering a solo recital at Sheldonian Theatre alongside Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra in 2022, winning the 2nd runner-up of Camac Competition London 2021, 1st runner-up of International Instrumentalist from Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod 2022, and the top prize (U35 Orchestral Instrumentalist) from Oxford Music Festival 2023. Her next performance engagement will be a solo recital during the annual general meeting of the Oxford Music Festival in May 2023.

I hereby nominate her under the “Achievement” category as she has shown excellence by completing all grades or all levels of the qualification she has been doing at such a young age and under a pressurising academic workload and enviroment.