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SAINT JOHN - Even in the womb, Conor Britt, 13, was surrounded by music. His three older brothers played piano and string instruments.
It made sense that he would follow in their footsteps. Just over five years ago, he picked up the cello just like his oldest brother.
For the first time this year, all four brothers got to play together in the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra, but only one of them has won the top award at the New Brunswick Competitive Festival of Music.
On Saturday night, out of 45 participants age 14 and under, Conor was bestowed the Junior Star at the April Mills Junior Concert at St. Mark's United Church for his performance of "Sonata in C Major," the first movement by Jean-Baptiste Breval.
"I was really surprised that I won,"Conor said."I practised a lot on that song; I was just hoping I wouldn't mess up or anything." His mother, Denise Britt, was "elated. I was shaking; he's my fourth son and they've all been through the music festival, it took four Britts to finally win the Junior Star award,"she said.
She got all of her sons involved in music at a young age.
"I encouraged and felt it was really important alongside their academic education that music was part of it, too," she said."Our oldest son was very musical and he was an easy one to lead the way for the other ones, they kind of never knew they had a choice, they had to play an instrument." Even though it was challenging at times to get them to stick with it through theirteen years, she said they're all happy they play now.
Her oldest son, 20-year-old Daniel, plays cello and the two middle boys, Liam, 18, and Rory,16,play viola.
"It's kind of nice for the boys that they have that to share and connect with," she said.
Conor plays the piano as well as the cello, but it's the latter that he took to the most. The Grade 8 student at Rothesay Park Middle School practises cello for about 45 minutes per day.
"To me, the cello sounds amazing - it's a really beautiful instrument,"he said.
Conor's name is now engraved alongside all the other Junior Star Award winners since 2000. He gets to keep the plaque for a year.He plans to put it up on a wall in his bedroom.
"When I was waiting for my turn to go up, I was number 33, I was really, really nervous, after I finished playing the song I felt really good," he said. "I feel pretty proud of myself." Sean Desmond won second place for piano and Allie White won third place for vocal (musical theatre).
