Young musicians have set the tone for a milestone year after wowing a panel of Petersfield Musical Festival judges in the warm up to its 125th anniversary programme.

This year’s Petersfield Musical Festival (PMF) is a big one for the town with Festival Hall and St Peter’s Church hosting a “rich and varied” programme of shows from March 13 to 21.

But there was a perfect warm-up on Sunday when Studio TPS hosted the PMF’s annual Festival of Young Composers.

Conductor and composer Jonathan Willcocks said this year’s competition had attracted the “strongest field of composers” in its nine-year history with compositions ranging from jazz and classical to full-scale symphonic orchestral works.

Former PMF chair and Philip Young congratulated entrants on their writing abilities with jazz pianist, composer and teacher Dr Jill Jarman completing a judging trio which gave expert analysis and feedback.

Entrants got the chance to talk about their compositional processes and inspiration with cash prizes from the Michael Hurd Fund being awarded.

Toby Beckingham richly deserved his First Prize in the 17-years and under for his extremely evocative Feuille d’Album composition for viola and piano.

Ella Bowker’s piano piece ‘Rattentanz’ and Lola Kerslake’s song with guitar and piano ‘Wasn’t Love’ were awarded certificates of Merit with the latter’s “conversational style” and lyrics being praised by Dr Jarman.

Otto Walker was awarded First prize in the 14 and under Category with his ‘Misadventures in the Goblin Kingdom’ orchestral recorded piece, while ‘Brandenburg Bebop,’ a recorded jazz piece by Henry Milne scored for small band.

He shared joint first prize with Corey Wilson for his full-blown ‘Hollywood Boulevard’ orchestral piece while Bedales sixth-former Elliot Cundy performed his own highly sophisticated composition called ‘Modus Tumultus’.

Rosie Bamford’s ‘Piano Quintet No.1 Movements 1&2, Water and Fire’ (recorded) also received a Certificate of Merit.