Sofía Patterson-Gutiérrez, 21

Sofía Patterson-Gutiérrez won the woodwind final of BBC Young Musician 2022, which led her to perform the Ibert Flute Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. Following this, she has performed across the UK and had her international debut at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany representing the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) last summer. As a freelancer, she has performed as principal flute with orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aurora, and the Philharmonia as well as doubling on piccolo, alto and bass flute with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Sofía is currently studying with Michael Cox at the Royal Academy of Music, where she holds a full scholarship kindly supported by the Calleva Foundation Award. During her time here, Sofía has won both the Altus William Bennett Flute Prize and the Academy’s Piccolo Prize. She has also participated in numerous projects, recently performing one of the solo flute parts in Boulez’s ‘Explosante-Fixe…’ alongside Michael Cox and Karen Jones in a side-by-side performance with the London Sinfonietta, conducted by George Benjamin at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Before studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Sofía attended Chetham’s School of Music, where she won the 2021 Concerto Competition and served as principal flute of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Highlights included televised BBC Proms performances of Daphnis et Chloé (2022) and Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis (2023), with music magazine Bachtrack praising her playing as “at a level that belied her age”.