Brisbane marimba player Chantel Chen has been awarded the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Young Instrumentalist Prize for 2022 at a gala event in Brisbane last night.

After 37 young musicians auditioned for the prize, seven were shortlisted as finalists. All seven performed last night, and it was the Brisbane State High School student who took home the top gong after her performance of Keiko Abe’s Prism Rhapsody.

2022 Young Instrumentalist Prize winner Chantel Chen. Image supplied.

Chen began playing percussion 12 years ago, and since then has won awards for both solo and chamber performance including Musica Viva’s Strike a Chord chamber music competition, Australian Percussion Eisteddfods and Queensland Percussive Arts Eisteddfods. She has also taken part in international competitions, and was recently a semi-finalist in the Southern Californian Marimba Competition.

Starting in 1999, the annual Young Instrumentalist prize is a concerto competition open to secondary school aged musicians from around Queensland. All finalists will receive cash prizes starting at $500 and mentoring opportunities, with the winner receiving $5,000 and the chance to work with QSO throughout 2022.

In addition to these prizes, each year one violinist...