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It has been a strange year in many ways.
This year's Maidstone Music Festival usually held at Invicta Grammar School in November went ahead but with participants for the first time required to send in their performances by video for adjudication online.
More than 200 people did so. It turned out that there were some advantages to the new format, as without the need to be physically present in Maidstone, entrants were attracted from a much wider geographic field, including one, a 10-year-old harpist, Adélaïde Faivre, from France.
Each year, the best performers at the festival are invited to take part in the Maidstone Young Musician Competition, which is organised by Rotary Club of Maidstone, Dawn Patrol.
Again this had to be held online.
Eight finalists submitted their recitals and were judged by the composer Malcolm Riley .
The results have just been announced.
Hannah Runting is the Maidstone Young Musician 2021.
Hannah, 17, is a harpist from Longfield, who studies at the Junior Royal Academy of Music in London on Saturdays. She performed Perpetuum Mobile from Germaine Tailleferre's Sonata for Harp.
She is an active member of Maidstone Youth Music Society, as well as the Kent County Youth Orchestra and Choir.
The runner-up is 15-year-old pianist Markus Sadler, who gave an impressive performance of Shostakovich and Bach.
He also plays trumpet in the Kent County Youth Orchestra and the Maidstone Wind Symphony.
Oliver Moh was chosen as the Young Musician of Promise.
Oliver is only nine, but hopes to become a professional cellist.
He receives lessons at the Junior Royal Academy of Music in London.
Videos of the winners playing can be viewed on the Dawn Patrol website.
Read more: All the latest news from Malling
