2017 YOUNG VIRTUOSO AWARD In 2016, the Fine Music National Young Virtuoso Award was won by the youngest-ever musician in the history of the competition. 13year old cellist Benett Tsai, accompanied by his father Joshua Tsai, won this prestigious award against competitors up to twice his age. The competition, which has been in place for 30 years, began as the Young Performers Award at 2MBS-FM (now Fine Music) and eventually became a program of the Fine Music network: ArtSound FM Canberra, Fine Music FM 102.5 Sydney, 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne, 4MBS Classic FM Brisbane and 5MBS Adelaide. Every year the winners of the state awards compete against each other and many of those who have achieved the award have gone on to stellar careers, which will surely be the case for Benett.
performing live to air. This year, the finalists for the NSW Young Virtuoso Award will be selected in partnership with the Sydney Eisteddfod. There will be two finalists from each of three Sydney Eisteddfod competitions: the John Allison and Sydney Eisteddfod Piano Scholarship; the Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship; and the NSW Doctors Orchestra Sydney Eisteddfod Instrumental Scholarship. The finalists will not be known until the middle of August.
We are proud to say that Benett was the Fine Music 102.5 entrant in the National Finals in Melbourne in 2016. At the time he was a year 7 student at Sydney Grammar School on a full music scholarship. Benett has won many competitions including the Alf & Pearl Pollard Award and the 25 and under Viola, Cello and Double Bass category at the 2015 Sydney Eisteddfod. Benett has also obtained his AMusA and LMusA with distinctions.
The winner of the Young Virtuoso State Award will then go on to compete in the National Finals. This year it is the turn of Fine Music 102.5 to host this event at the Alastair MacKerras Theatre at Sydney Grammar School. It will be a live broadcast on Sunday 26 November 2017 from 3.00pm to 5.00pm and the winner of the 2017 Fine Music Young Virtuoso National Award will receive a prize of $10,000.
In the past, the competition at Fine Music was held throughout the year with participants
On Fine Music, listen to the program The Tsai Family on Sunday 20 August at 2pm.
On 27 August the finalists, two pianists, two singers and two instrumentalists, will perform live to air in front of a panel of judges in the Founders’ Studio at Fine Music. The winner receives $3,000, the runner-up $2,000 and the other four contestants will receive $500 each.
In this you will hear Benett Tsai’s winning performances from last year’s Fine Music Young Virtuoso National Award along with performances by his pianist father, Joshua, and his uncle, cellist Thomas Tsai who is one of Benett’s teachers. One week later, join us for the live broadcast of the 2017 Fine Music Young Virtuoso State Award finals at 3pm on Sunday 27 August.
MESSAGE FROM VIENNA the 100th anniversary of the birth of conductor Georg Tintner who spent the years 1954 to 1987 in Australia. His widow, Tanya Buchdahl Tintner, was visitng Vienna from her home in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she and Georg had settled after they left Australia. She looked up the internet and sent the meassage to express her thanks to us for remembering her husband.
A message from Vienna came through our website on Monday 22 May, the day when Fine Music broadcast a program celebrating
In reply I sent her the article which we published in our May magazine and said that I would make a CD for her of the broadcast. She later wrote: “I was curious to see if anyone anywhere had remembered Georg’s 100th. I knew already that Radio New Zealand had; I assumed correctly that the ABC hadn’t; but I didn’t know about your program until I saw it then, and what a happy surprise that was!”
Tanya told me that she has been here to Fine Music in the past. She was quite impressed when I told her that we had a lovely new building and that we had moved across the road and back again without a break in transmission. She will be visiting Sydney in early August to attend the festival Out of the Shadows (refer to the article on page 9). The festival will include some of Georg’s compositions. Vienna was Georg Tintner’s birthplace but, because he was a Jew, he left Vienna in 1938 and spent the rest of his life living in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Tanya now plans to visit to us at Fine Music.during that week. Tanya, Georg’s third wife, has been a strong advocate in preserving his legacy which included his stunning interpretations of Bruckner’s symphonies. Tanya’s biography of Georg Tintner, Out of Time, was published by University of Western Australia Publishing in 2011. - Editor August 2017
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