Peterborough schoolgirl wins through to Young Chorister of the Year final

​Broadcast on BBC1 on Sunday, Songs of Praise, hosted by Aled Jones, featured the semi-final of the Junior category (ages 11-13), contested by five young singers, who opened the programme by singing Lord Of The Dance together.

King’s School Year 7 pupil Jasmine Barnes (12), a chorister at Peterborough Cathedral, was seen being interviewed by the Rev Kate Bottley – and being quizzed about playing football for Peterborough United Foundation Under-12 Girls – before singing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu.

First judge to comment was award-winning musician YolanDa Brown, who described it as “not an easy one to sing”, adding “I really loved your interpretation. You were crystal clear in your tone and your diction. I really enjoyed it.”

Also commenting on the difficulty of the piece, sInging star Katherine Jenkins added: “The range on this is massive and I thought you handled it really, really well, It was a very confident and assured performance. I loved your sense of dynamics.”

Finally, composer Bob Chilcott said: “ Well done, Jasmine. You had courage with your breathing because those phrases are quite long and I wanted particularly to note the way that you sang that very last phrase because that is a killer at the end of the piece - and you killed it.”

That prompted Aled to add: “You think the song is over then that last phrase is coming up in the distance and that last high note.”

In the judges’ summarising before putting Jasmine through to the final, Bob again praised on the way she performed the difficult ending of the piece, while YolanDa described her as “a really great technical singer” and Katherine commented on a “very technically assured performance.”

You can see the final on Songs of Praise on BBC1 on December 1.

The semi-final is available on iPlayer.