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Music Academy
This year, the Music Academy has continued with its quest to create closer links with Australia’s musical community.
In April, Camberwell Grammar held the Inaugural Richard Gill Memorial Festival of Strings. Our Academy String players joined with string players from Melbourne Girls Grammar School, Scotch, and PLC under the baton of Graham Abbott to perform a special arrangement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. It was particularly magical as the late Richard Gill’s widow, Maureen Gill, gave a moving speech about the value of a music education for all.
The Music Academy enjoyed visits from pianist Stefan Cassomenos, Bassist Rohan Dasika, Cellists Edith Salzman and Richard Narroway, Tuba player Fabian Russell, Saxophonist Lachlan Davidson, Violinist Simon James, Violist Ivan Vukcevic, Baroque Violinist Rachael Beesley, Flautist Prue Davis, and Oboist Josh de Graaf. In a special combined event with the Sports Academy, there were Pilates classes to examine the importance of core strength and playing a musical instrument.
Musicians enjoyed two excursions this year. The first was to Opera Australia’s La Traviata and the Australian World Orchestra’s performance of three Strauss tone poems under the baton of Zubin Mehta. This was particularly enjoyable as our Head of Strings, Ms Lisa Grosman, was on stage. In July, four of our musicians performed in a live 3MBSFM broadcast. Charles Campbell-Cowan, Tiger Diao, Steven Wang, and Captain of Music Freddy Branson performed and spoke beautifully on air.
This year, Camberwell Grammar musicians had unprecedented representation at the Australian Youth Orchestra programs with Owen Wu, Nicholas Branson, Charles Taliadoros, James Kerferd, and Derrick Kwon taking part in the Young Symphonists program. Our students also took advantage of the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra’s Workshop Young Mannheim Symphonists with Rachael Beesley. Isaac Field, Matthew Rogers, Victor Liu, Eric Zhou, Ethan Wang and Richard Su took part in this enriching week of historically informed performance.
This year, we farewell flautist and Captain of Music Freddy Branson. He is a marvellous musician who has reached the highest pinnacle that a school student can reach. He has also made an enormous commitment to our school culture. We wish him all the best for his further studies.
It is always inspiring to see Camberwell Grammar’s music students represent our musically enriched community on the national stage.
Ms Rachel Atkinson Head of Music Academy
