Closing the year I want to celebrate a really great achievement that I didn’t post about when it happened. I was invited by the Brisbane Club to compete for the Brisbane Club Award!
It is an annual competition with a large money prize for the winners of first and second place, along with an audience choice award. Each year the heads of department at the conservatorium nominate students to represent their department in this competition and I was very honored to be chosen this year to represent the percussion department!
The competition had two performances, one on the 20th of October which took place at the QLD Conservatorium and another at the Brisbane Club on the 23rd. It was very short notice, I actually found out 3 days before the competition started, so I had to put some effort into getting a piece ready for performance. I performed Argentinian Suite for Solo Vibraphone by Pablo Bagilet on the Monday night and brought my best mate Lachlan Hawkins along on Thursday to perform our duo composition ‘Loopstack’.
The performance at the Brisbane Club was, I admit, a challenge because the audience was very formal and incredibly upper class. We had a few responses after from people that were very interested and surprised by our performance, which was good, but mostly there wasn’t much reaction.
I’m incredibly proud and honored to have been a part of this competition. I performed alongside musicians who were the best in their departments and their instruments and I think they all did an amazing job!
Congratulations to Eddy Chen for winning the Brisbane Club Award, Reuben Fenomore for getting the Jim Massey Memorial Prize, and Ian Hendorson for the Audience Choice award!
Thank you to Vanessa Tomlinson for nominating me for the competition!
Below is a short video of my Monday night performance from the competition
