Musician of the Year 2024

At the annual Musician of the Year concert on Tuesday 3 September, the enthusiastic audience was treated to performances by fourteen young musicians. The skills and musicianship on display were impressive.

Congratulations to this year’s Musician of the Year award winners on their extraordinary performances. Liam Truscott (Year 12) won the Classical award and Elyssa Bhowon (Year 9) the Contemporary award.

Held in the Marian Theatre at St Mary’s, this event is a highlight of our performing arts calendar. Students, parents, staff and past students attended this prestigious event, to be entertained by the diverse talents of our music students. The students performed a wide variety of genres and styles and demonstrated their great work in the lead-up to, and on, the evening.

While this is a competition, all students gained valuable experience from performing in this environment and in front of a great crowd, who were thoroughly entertained all evening. A heartfelt thank you to our adjudicators, Dr Michael Lichnovsky and Mrs Kristen Beever, whose thoughtful feedback will be very valuable to students as they move forward with their music studies.

In 2024, two Musician of the Year Awards were presented for the first time, offering an opportunity for students to be recognised for excellence in both the classical and contemporary fields.

Musician of the Year (Classical) was awarded to Liam Truscott (Year 12), who performed Goedicke’s Concert Etude on trumpet. Second place went to Jamie Dearricott (piano, Year 9) performing Bach’s Prelude No.1 and in third place was Tobias Sexton (clarinet, Year 10) playing Moszkowski’s Spanish Dance .

Elyssa Bhowon (Year 9) was awarded Musician of the Year (Contemporary), singing Celine Dion’s Tellement j’ai d’amour pour toi. Second place went to Tarah Frawley (guitar/voice, Year 11) for her original composition Inside Out and in third place was Georgia Thompson (voice, Year 10) with Write Out Loud’s Little Miss Perfect.

Congratulations also to Henry Hetherington (Year 9) who received the Emerging Artist Award (guitar and voice) for his performance of Bullet for My Valentine by Tears Don’t Fall.

The audience was also treated to a performance by Elizabeth Barrow, past winner of the 2009 and 2006 Musician of the Year, who sang the beautiful Summertime by George Gershwin while the adjudicators finalised their decision.

Assistant Principal Learning and Teaching, Mrs Gina Giblin said: “I’m always blown away by the creative and performance abilities demonstrated by our students. Students relished the opportunity to compete across both the classical and contemporary fields and the audience loved the variety on show. The quality of performance was outstanding – we have a lot to look forward to from our musicians in the next few years!”

Thank you to our Arts Captain, Oliver Sexton, for his work as Master of Ceremonies, the adjudicators, Dr Michael Lichnovsky and Mrs Kristen Beever and to accompanist Dr Peter Butler.  We very much appreciate your time and expertise.

Well done to all the award winners and young musicians who performed and thank you to our dedicated music staff for preparing the students and facilitating the evening.