A YOUNG musician has won a place in the final of a national contest.

Dan Johnson, of Spennymoor, will compete with five of the country's top young jazz artists for the prize of a West End concert and £1,000 in the Jazz Academy final in June.

If he wins, he will be invited to perform a solo concert at the Pizza Express Jazz Club, in London's Soho.

Dan, 19, who is in his first year of a jazz degree course at Leeds College of Music, competed against second and third year students in the regional heat.

He said: "I was really surprised to win, because the other musicians were really good and more experienced.

"The judges said that stage presence and character was considered, and I enjoy playing the saxophone so much that I relax and just perform. It is a long time since I got nervous.

"This is a great chance to perform in a good venue, which is what I would desperately like to do professionally."

Dan, a former Tudhoe Grange School pupil, started to play the saxophone when he was 11 and this week returned to the school to take part in a concert.

Former music teacher Adrian Biddulph said: "He won several competitions in this area and is now doing well on the national stage. Just getting into Leeds College was a real achievement and I'm sure there will be more success in the future."