A summary of the musical year that was 2024!

We look back on 2024 as a year of logistical challenges and outstanding success - so a pretty normal year for the Music Department in all honesty!

There are so many successes and highlights to celebrate this year, a selection of which follows…

Choral success at The Big Sing, especially Bel Canto and Aurora Voices who took away major awards at both the Regional and National stages of this competition.

The growth and success of The Aurora Festival - now a major musical event for the South Island’s school and community orchestras, bands, and now jazz bands. This year we hosted 31 different ensembles from around Canterbury and Nelson.

Success in the Chamber Music National Contest; special congratulations to the Thermann Triolins (Janetta, Vivian and Fifian) who were awarded the Adjudicators’ Award at the National final of this hotly contested and prestigious competition.

Success in Jazz - so many individual awards at Jazz Quest, including Reiss Fatani, Best Overall Musician. Jacob Mullen and Reiss also picked up awards in the Jazz Band-it competition in Wellington, with a number of our students also selected as finalists.

The continued growth of our Contemporary Music programme, including a very special evening featuring our senior musicians at the new Papa Hou theatre.

The continued levels of excellence achieved by our Specialist Music Programme students in their solo recitals, and in the leadership that they bring to the department. The new SMP website is now a fitting reflection of the depth and quality of the work that goes on in the very highest level of music making in our school.

The success of the Music Department Roadshow - a fun and rewarding way in which to connect with our local primary and intermediate schools, showing them the amazing range of opportunities on offer at Burnside.

The Concert Tour held at the end of Term 3. 132 students comprising our Orchestra, Big Band, together with Bel Canto and Magna Voce travelled to Blenheim and Nelson for a five day tour, presenting nine concerts and collaborating with musicians from Nelson College for Girls, Nelson College, Waimea College and Marlborough Girls’ College. The highlights were certainly the Big Band playing at The Honest Lawyer with the Nelson Jazz Club, and the end-of-tour gala concert at the Nelson Centre of Music and Arts. A hugely enjoyable and rewarding experience for all the students and staff involved.

The success of our newly introduced Cambridge International courses for senior music students. Special congratulations to Chloe Chan who achieved the highest mark in New Zealand in last year’s iGCSE exam and attended a special ceremony in Auckland to collect her award. This year a group of Year 12 students have successfully completed the AS level course for the first time, and next year the Cambridge A level course will be introduced in Year 13. These courses run alongside the established NCEA courses and provide a challenging extension for some of our highest achieving musicians. Burnside is the only school on the South Island to offer Cambridge Music and one of very few state schools nationally to do so.

The CSO Composition Project - twelve Cambridge AS Music students benefited from the opportunity to compose for a professional string quartet from the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. The musicians workshopped students’ work as it progressed, and finally produced recordings of their completed pieces.

The Year 13 Conductors’ Concert. Musical leadership through conducting has been a focus for a number of Year 13 students for many years now. They study conducting techniques and rehearsal strategies in class, and are assigned an ensemble and staff mentor to work with for the year. This year the Year 13 students led a special concert where they planned the logistics, programmed music and introduced and conducted the entire concert to a packed Aurora Centre of students and teachers from many of our local schools. This was a hugely successful event which will now be part of our annual calendar.

So many individual student successes - too many to list here. Again, Burnside was heavily represented in nationally selected groups - the New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Symphony Orchestra; NZSO National Youth Orchestra and New Zealand Secondary Schools’ Choir. Special congratulations to Anastasia Bell who was selected as a conducting intern by the NZSO, and to Tor Chiles and Cameron Smillie who were selected as CSO interns. The experience gained from this type of involvement with professional musical organisations is invaluable. Huge congratulations also to Will Luhrs who was awarded a major scholarship to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston next year.

Our annual Music Awards night was held early in Term 4. Never before has it been clearer just how special the music community at Burnside High School is. So many highly achieving students and successes to celebrate, all concentrated into one evening, is a humbling and proud experience for the staff, and hopefully all the students too. This year’s guest speaker was Ella Dunbar-Wilcox, who is now pursuing Masters study in California and has just released her first E.P; this was featured on the “Inside Out” programme on Radio New Zealand very recently - another example of Burnside musicians making their mark on the world stage. Ella made some key points about how her time at Burnside had shaped her as a musician, which should have provided lots of food for thought for our current cohort. That magical combination of talent, hard work, perseverance, humility, together with a bit of luck and working well with others, is really the key to success. This year’s major music award winners are listed here. As ever, with so many talented musicians in the department, being chosen as a recipient of one of these cups is a huge achievement in its own right. Well done to you all.

The Fiona McKay Cup for Vocal Performance was awarded to Shannon Shi

The Principal’s Cup for Composition was awarded to Anastasia Bell

The Jean Cumming Cup for Contribution to Choral Music was awarded to Phyllis Turner

The Mary Travers Award for Performance Music was awarded to Tor Chiles

The 1976 School Council Cup for Contribution to Instrumental Music was awarded to Caleb Langford

The Principal’s Cup for Contemporary Music was awarded to Will Luhrs

The 1976 School Council Cup for Contribution to Music was awarded to Irene Kim

The Smokefree Cup for Leadership in Music was awarded to Shannon Shi

The Peter Rowe Cup for Musicianship was awarded to Will Luhrs

We were very happy to be able to introduce two new cups to the prize table this year:

The Hugh Stevenson Cup for Excellence in Chamber Music was awarded to Portia Bell

The Jane Doig Cup for Service and Community was awarded to Emanuela McKinnon

Hugh Stevenson was the Head of Music between 1998 and 2010 before leaving to teach overseas, which he does to this day. During his time here he established the Specialist Music Programme and was the main driving force behind getting the Aurora Centre built. His biggest passion was for chamber music, which became, and remains, an integral part of the Specialist Music Programme. He opened up new opportunities in this area for so many students and many of his groups were successful in winning national competitions. He explored and exposed students to new, challenging repertoire, a tradition that lives on to this day, and many students from his time are now working as professional chamber musicians around the world. This cup will be awarded annually to a Year 13 student who has excelled in chamber music over their five years at the school

Jane Doig had a 30 year long career at Burnside High School before she passed away in 2022, after a long illness that she fought with courage and humour. Across three decades Jane had been our music librarian, flute teacher, international student coordinator, choir accompanist, music relief teacher, the list goes on. She was the ultimate camp mum and looked after all of us, staff and students.

This cup will be awarded annually to a Year 13 student that embodies the qualities that Jane showed us all - care for others and selfless service to the music department and school. It was incredibly special to have Zara here with us to present the cup for the first time.

Thanks…

It goes without saying that none of this success would happen without the unfailing dedicated teaching of the Music Department staff, Cain Hood, Cameron Oswin and Dr Helen Renaud, supported by the ITMs and private tutors who work with the students day in, day out. Special thanks to Gabby Kerr who joined us as the new Arts Coordinator earlier this year; her help and support has been invaluable. 

Thanks to all our SMP tutors, chamber music coaches and Dr Patrick Shepherd for his Presidency of the Specialist Music Programme and North West Music Festival.

Thanks to our choir directors, Susan Densem and Charlotte Ensor, and to all the piano accompanists, students and professionals, who have helped with rehearsals, concerts and exams.

Thanks to Darren Smith and Music Works NZ for their support and sponsorship of The Aurora Festival.

Finally, thanks to all parents, caregivers and families for their ongoing support of the students. Without your support - practical, emotional and financial, they would be unable to achieve the things they do and we hope that they show their gratitude to you themselves!

The Music Department wishes you all a happy festive season and restful summer holidays. We look forward to seeing most of you back here in February.

Best wishes to you all

Chris Petch

HOD Music