Violinist Máiréad hits all the right notes

A teenage violin virtuoso has taken a huge step towards a career in music after winning the country’s largest classical music competition for second-level students.

Violinist Máiréad Hickey, 17, from The Lough area of Cork City, a sixth-year student at Mount Mercy College who studies violin under Adrian Petcu at the CIT Cork School of Music, won the Top Security-sponsored Fr Frank Maher Music Awards at the weekend with her performances of Siciliana from Sonata I in G Minor by Bach, and La Capricieuse by Elgar.

It is the second year in a row that the winner has come from Cork City.