of the Year award, Gillian Frame, prepared to take the stage and play as her final duty, the judges retired to make their decision. And no-one in the room would envy them their task because once again the standard of performance by the finalists, seven this year, was outstanding.

As each musician arrived to compete for the prizes, which at the ''business end'' include a recording contract and bookings at several high profile festivals such as Tonder, in Denmark, and Celtic Connections 2003, apart from the quality, the striking thing was how many of them were in the middle reaches of the required 16-25 age range. So

young, but so mature. Nineteen-year-old fiddler Ruaridh Campbell from Aberfoyle set a cracking pace with his articulate, characterful playing, injecting personality into The Hen's March to the Midden and establishing a trend for original compositions which harper Jennifer Port continued, showing ambition and poise in her The Secret, inspired by her hush-hush booking to play at Madonna's wedding.

Singer-guitarist Findlay Napier came on to impressive form with his reading of the Dowie Dens of Yarrow and the unaccompanied A Wee Drappie o' It, and Lori Watson showed typical Borders guile and natural feeling on a fine set of fiddle tunes, before eighteen-year-old Ross Ainsley earned raucous cheers for his nimble, exciting smallpipes, whistle, and Highland pipes playing. Emily Smith's remarkably assured ballad singing and Jamie Smith's considered and nicely-toned fiddling completed the judges' headache, and after an evening that as a concert would have earned rave reviews, Emily Smith, the twenty-year-old RSAMD student proved to be the winner in a very strong field indeed.