Amelia Worssam | TrinityTalent 2020

Amelia Worssam was selected for Artistic Achievement for TrinityTalent and is the Youth Choice for her Arts Award achievements. 

16-year-old Amelia was nominated for TrinityTalent 2020 for her achievements in comedy, drama and music for her Silver Arts Award. Amelia completed her Arts Award from home and focused on a wide variety of arts for her Arts Award including drama, music (piano and singing), creative writing (sketches, poetry, comedy) and visual arts. 

Amelia was selected by the Youth Choice panel to feature as a Youth Choice for the Arts Award category. They said: "Amelia has shown an innovative range of skills and talent and it's clear that lots of hard work has gone on, especially in these challenging times of lockdown."

Amelia was nominated by Louisa Worssam, her parent and private music tutor. Louisa said: "Amelia was due to put on a comedy show for her Arts Award including music she had written, poems and sketches, songs and drama pieces. This, unfortunately, could not happen due to Covid-19, so she had to adapt. This involved learning a lot of new IT techniques, particularly in how to record and compile a video involving several people in different locations. She committed to learning skills in writing music, lyrics and comedy sketches as well as performing works of others. Alongside this, she also developed her skills in portraiture, in particular of comedians to fit with her theme. It was a huge learning curve with many hours of work involved."

The Trinity judges said: "Amelia showed both great achievement in her art form and also originality. We were impressed by the range of art forms in her portfolio and her commitment and determination."


How has your Trinity qualification influenced your artistic achievement? 
During my Arts Award, I wrote my first song which inspired me to develop this skill further. I realised I was capable of something that seemed daunting. It was hard to write the first song but because it was for this qualification I persevered and this gave me the confidence to try again. I have now written several other songs and it has started coming quite easily to me. I was even inspired to start learning the guitar this January in the third lockdown which has given me a different outlet on which to write. This is the beginning of my journey into the Gold Arts Award for which I want to concentrate on songwriting and guitar. 

Has taking part in a Trinity qualification helped you to develop wider skills?  

The Arts Award developed my creativity on several fronts. It gave me an outlet for performing and showcasing my writing across different genres, including stand-up comedy that I hadn’t tried before. I also learnt to collaborate with my friends in helping to teach them to sing a song and enlisting their help in producing a visually interesting performance. The experience taught me how to motivate others. In my art, the award led me to experiment with different mediums, increasing my confidence just to try out new techniques and not worry about the outcome, which has freed up my creativity. 

Tell us how you found the experience of recording a digital submission for music

Although I was selected to be part of the TrinityTalent Class 2020 for my Silver Arts Award, I have also completed a digital Grade 8 piano exam with Trinity in the summer of 2020. I was pleased that I had this opportunity so that I could achieve my qualification even in lockdown, but I think that there are unique challenges presented by an online exam. Personally, I found it more stressful than a face-to-face exam as I pressured myself to achieve a perfect recording of my pieces, whereas in a normal exam the pieces would flow in the moment with the overall impact being the important one. I found myself obsessing over tiny mistakes and I was frustrated that the quality of the sound, particularly in dynamics, was not picked up by the recording device as I would have liked. 

Would you like to tell us anything about the challenges you’ve faced this year, and how you’ve overcome them to achieve your qualification? 

Being home-schooled I have faced challenges this year regarding completing my GCSEs. I was unable to get predicted grades as a private candidate and that felt incredibly unfair. I spent time writing to the Education Secretary and a long letter to Boris Johnson, as well as contacting my MP to make submissions on my behalf. However, I didn’t get any response that dealt with my situation and was left with nothing. This meant that I had to push my exams on to November where they were all completed in a two-week window. This actually meant that I was doing the exams whilst completing other work such as my Arts Award. I was very happy that I was able to achieve some qualifications using online tools such as music exams and the Arts Award. 

What are the next steps for you following your qualification? 

I am still enjoying my art lessons where I am currently working on portraits of an NHS worker inspired by the artist Thomas Croft who started the Healthcare Heroes project. In January I started teaching myself the guitar and writing songs using this new skill. I want to develop this further for my Gold Arts Award. My next goal for my creative writing is turning my hand to writing a play that I hope can actually be performed once we are out of lockdown. 

What are your career aims? 

I feel that whatever my career eventually turns out to be, that it will include writing in some form. If I was lucky enough to also be successful with my music that would be incredible. At the moment I am deciding on what A-Levels I am going to take - there are many barriers to trying to complete these as a homeschooler so that will affect my options. After that, I will probably apply for an English degree. 

Have you got any advice for other young people working towards a Trinity qualification? 

My advice is to go for it and be as creative as you can. The great thing I have found about the Arts Award is that it is very open to all sorts of different art forms and this has greatly benefitted me, enabling development in so many exciting areas. I have found things I love doing that I might never have tried otherwise. 

Find out more about Amelia

Follow Amelia on YouTube: Amelia Worssam



Read more about the talented young people selected to be featured as part of the TrinityTalent Class of 2020.

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Trinity Talent

Trinity Talent

TrinityTalent celebrates talented young people achieving Trinity’s music, drama and Arts Award qualifications in the UK.

Teachers and students can nominate young artists aged 13-25 who have shown excellence in one of the following categories during 2021: CREATIVE FLAIR | PROGRESS | LEADERSHIP

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