Sebastian O’Shea-Farren, a Ballsbridge resident and Gonzaga College pupil, is one of the leading young musicians today in Ireland.He has won numerous feiseanna and recently won an international piano competition in Romania.

“I started the piano when I was seven and the clarinet when I was ten,” he says, “and from third to sixth class I sang in St.Patrick’s cathedral choir school.” Being surrounded by music from a young age has helped Sebastian progress rapidly on his instruments, and aside from music, his other passion is rugby. Sebastian plays number eight for his school’s under 14 rugby team and is a dedicated Leinster supporter.

His week is a busy one. Monday to Friday involves school, and afterwards, rugby training, or matches. Music lessons take place on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and each day he must somehow find the time to practice. Normally he will practice one and a half hours on the piano and between 30 and 40 minutes on the clarinet, and somewhere among all that there’s the homework to be done.

Many music students around the world are trained and schooled at specialist music schools or even educated at home, allowing them more time to concentrate and focus on their chosen instruments.

Competing against these young musicians doesn’t worry Sebastian too much. He doesn’t believe the study of music should involve daily marathon practice sessions. “It’s more than how many hours did I do today or whether I can play at that speed. If you practice something too much it becomes the exact same each time you play it, and that can’t be good,” he says. “You need life experience to play emotional pieces, but if you’re practising eight hours a day you don’t have much life experience to base your emotion on.”

On the question of nerves before playing in front of an audience, he says they are a good thing. “I have performed live quite a lot, playing concerts and playing in competitions. It’s good to be a bit nervous. If you’re not, you don’t perform.”

This April, Sebastian will perform a world premiere in Rome of a solo piano piece composed by the renowned Scottish composer, Ronald Stevenson. The piece will be a rosary on variations of Seán O’Riada’s Mass.

This talented young musician says he has at least four years before deciding what he wants to do in life. “If you focus too much on one thing,” he says, “you miss out on other opportunities”. He is taking a different approach to his music and is not yet keen to place all his eggs in the one basket, but whatever opportunities do arise in the future for Sebastian and whatever he decides to do, he will doubtless excel. For this conscientious and hard-working young man, so far so very good.