A classical violinist visit a school for its annual community festival.

Hilary Hahn visited The Purcell School in Bushey on March 15 as the students performed in their community festival.

Hilary Hahn made her first major orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1990 at the age of eleven while studying with Jascha Brodsky at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

By 1995, Hahn was debuting internationally and by 1996 she had debuted at Carnegie Hall as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

During the festival Hahn performed a Bach partita and a piece composed for her by Garcia-Abril.

As part of her performance the pupils were asked to respond to the piece, creating beautiful sketches about what they had experienced during her playing.

From minimalist patterns to full portraits of Hahn in performance the pupils seemed suitably inspired.

The event concluded with a prize giving where Alison Cox, The Purcell School’s head of composition and outreach, gave medals to the ensembles and duos that showed the most progress.

Hilary then spoke about the importance of outreach work for musicians.

She expressed vividly how important music can be in bringing people together and how it is projects such as this one that prove that all music, including classical, is for everyone.