Lancing College is delighted to announce that Raphael (Rafi) Bellamy Plaice has just been awarded BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year 2017 (boys) in this year’s competition which was held at the BBC Philharmonic Studios at MediaCityUK in Salford.
Currently in the Third Form at Lancing, Rafi was one of eight finalists who made it through two rigorous preliminary rounds, facing tough competition from other young and talented singers from around the country. In the final Rafi sang the hymn Now the Green Blade Riseth, to the French carol tune Noël Nouvelet, and then But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming from Handel’s Messiah. After the winners were announced, he sang a duet (with the Girl Chorister of the Year, Ischia Gooda), John Rutter’s I Will Sing with the Spirit.
The Young Chorister of the Year programme and Rafi’s winning performance can be heard on the BBC Radio 2 website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nh7xv
Rafi, former Head Chorister at Chichester Cathedral, won a music scholarship and joined Lancing this September from The Prebendal School in Chichester. He is one of three siblings at Lancing and has well-known parents in the music world, Marcia Bellamy (opera singer) and Stephen Plaice (writer and playwright).
In addition to taking his place in the Lancing College Choir, where he regularly performs as a soloist, Rafi is a keen cricketer and Egyptologist.
Commenting on the award Dominic Oliver, Head Master said “All of us at Lancing are absolutely delighted that Rafi has been recognised in this way. A modest young man who loves to perform and does so with exquisite skill, I cannot think of a more deserving winner. Lancing has a fine tradition of outstanding musicianship, with pupils studying and performing at the very highest levels at the College and beyond”.