SINGAPORE — A combination of musicality and confidence, that was what separated the winners of this year’s Young Talent Project (YTP) from the rest of the group.

The finals of the YTP on Saturday evening saw Wang Hao Jia receiving the top award, the Amadeus Young Talent Prize. The 15-year-old pianist walked away with S$2,000 in cash, as well as an all-expenses-paid trip to Vienna for masterclasses at the renowned AMADEUS International School Vienna. Meanwhile, violinist Dai Ailin took the Symphony 92.4FM Prize and pipa player Chen Xinyu was awarded the Best Stage Presence Award. They received S$2,000 and S$1,000 in cash, respectively.

Moses Gay, the assistant conductor of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, who was one of the judges on the panel said making the decision was not as easy as he thought at first. “It was kind of tough because there were many pianists and there were many diverse instruments,” he said. “Wang portrayed great showmanship and his confidence was very high. Repertoire-wise, he chose a piece by Enrique Granados, which allowed him to show colour and emotions — and he really nailed it.”

An obviously elated Wang said he didn’t expect to win at the YTP. “I was just thinking of going along and trying my best with the piece. I was definitely very surprised (by the decision),” he said. “I am very excited because Vienna is the ‘home of music’ and I’ll definitely learn a lot there. I am very honoured.”

As for Dai’s award, Gay said that while the judges weren’t that impressed initially, they changed their minds as the 10-year-old continued playing her piece. “When she got to the quick section, wow, she was fantastic,” he said. “We discovered we all marked the same results! We had to give scores on different sections such as technicality, musicality, confidence, X-factor and all that, but we all agreed on the decisions.”

The Stage Presence award though, was another matter altogether. For Gay, two choices stood out — 11-year-old Chen and vocalist Lauren Yeo, also 11. “It’s not that I didn’t think Wang or Dai had very good stage presence, but, personally, I wanted to encourage either someone from the voice or Chinese instrument category,” said Gay.

He continued: “As it turned out all the other judges agreed that the girl playing the pipa had very good stage presence. In the end, it was just the choice of repertoire that Chen played that convinced me.”