UQ musicians are packing for a summer tour to the lands of Bach and Vivaldi, making up a large portion of the international-standard Queensland Youth Symphony.
Of a symphony with more than 100 players, 26 are students from The University of Queensland, a particularly large contingent this year, especially in the strings section, says School of Music Director of Performance Studies Patricia Pollett.
“This alone is quite a feather in our cap. Entry to the Queensland Youth Symphony is very competitive and the auditions feature hundreds of people vying for only a few positions,” she said.
“This says a lot about the high standards we have come to expect of our students.”
The symphony leaves for the four-week tour on June 22 and the musicians will be billeted by their overseas peers from other youth orchestras in Malaysia, Austria, France and Germany.
The tour is held every four years and is a key opportunity to fully engage with the history of music, the lifestyle of the touring musician and the international music community, and will likely be just enough to leave them wanting more, said Ms Pollett.
“We are so far away from Europe and from where classical music culture emanated, it is really important to actually be there, to be in Italy and understand Vivaldi, or in Germany to understand Beethoven and Bach, just by the nature of the people you meet and the environment.”
Such cultural understanding could not possibly be taught in the classroom, or even from watching international films.
“Even interacting with families and students is really important to this process, and of course they get to play in really good venues.
“This is a summer tour and they get very good audiences in summer in Europe. To play for a fresh new audience, and the buzz they get from that, is a big thing.”
In the lead up to the tour, students have been intensively practicing with a series of keynote lectures from people in the music industry.
UQ students in the symphony are: Ann Patrick, Rollin Zhao, Stephanie Grenning, Julianna Kim, Tess McLennan, Samuel Andrews, Matilda Watkins, Stephanie Clutterbuck, Michael Webb, Kieran Welch, Sarah Lewis, Hannah Rowland, Joe Killen, Georgia Betros, Oliver Scott, Tom Witten, Olivia Stanton, Amy Naumann, Emma Kreis, Angela Batch, Joshua Rivory, Timothy Andrews, Renn Hunt, Bartholemew Woodham, Katryn Strong, Christopher Strom, Geoffrey Wu, Danica Inglis and Emily Smith.
The QYS concert series is available here with the next concert on June 2 at the QPAC Concert Hall.
Media: Patricia Pollett, School of Music (07 3365 4013 or p.pollett@uq.edu.au) or Janelle Kirkland, UQ Communications (07 3346 0561 or j.kirkland@uq.edu.au).
