Piano & Soloist Competition
On Tuesday 31 July, the final performance of the 2018 Piano & Soloist Competition was held in Buckley Hall. The Piano & Soloist Competition has been a regular and significant event on the Music Calendar since the first event held in 1995, when Kevin Teoh, Geoff Smith, and Paul Paddle (all music students of the school) presented a piano concert to raise money for the purchase of a new Grand Piano.
Over three years, nearly $20,000 was raised towards the cost of the piano currently in Buckley Hall. It was a great joy when Ivan and June Fox stepped in to finalise the purchase of the piano in time for that generation of students to enjoy. The first Piano Competition was staged in 1996. In 2006, the competition expanded to include in the Senior Category, performers on other instruments. The event is now referred to as The Piano and Soloist Competition.
The first prize award to the Senior Performer is now also named after Ivan & June Fox, in recognition of their considerable contribution to the purchase of the first grand Piano. The award is subsequently called the: “Ivan and June Fox Award” Senior Performer 1st Place. For the past several years, Richard Fox, Ivan and June’s son has presented the 1st Place Award. He did so again this year.
Each year we invite a guest adjudicator to attend the evening event and decide upon the placings of the competitors in the Performer Category. This year we had the great pleasure of having Stefan Cassomenos as our adjudicator. Stefan is an internationally acknowledged Concert Pianists and is heard regularly on recordings broadcast by ABC – FM.
His comments and interaction with the performers concluded with many of our young players talking to Stefan directly about their performance. The individual performances on Tuesday night, by all of the competitors in the Performer Sections, were of an exceedingly high and musically mature standard.
Please congratulate these students on their success. The place winners are:
| Junior Performer | Intermediate Performer | Senior Performer |
| First: Jerry Lin | First: Kate Hamilton | Patrick Vaughan, (Winner of the Ivan and June Fox Award) |
| Second: Elizabeth Tan | Second: Patrick Suiter | Second: Luke Barbagallo |
| Third: Ava Chih | Third: Vincent Chih | Third: Tom Salomon |
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