Many of Logan Park’s rock musicians have made significant achievements over the year.

Several Logan Park acts competed in the Smokefree RockQuest in which Solid Merit (Cathy Zeng, Albert Baeumer, Abe Baillie, Josie Baughan, and Finn McKinlay) came first in the regional final. Additionally, Finn won the best musician award on the night.

Do Speak Louder (Louis Freeman and Zion Berwick) won the Fatboy Style award and Melicen Barber won the lyric writing award and was recognised at a national level coming second equal out of the whole country.

A number of our rock musicians and bands; including Carmina (Barney Conolly, Jack Wing, Benny Holloway and Zion Berwick), Painted Blind (Neive Strang, Rikke Kikkawa-McLeod, Cuba Rust and Mary Locker), Do Speak Louder, Cox’s Orange (Quinn Hardie, Louis Freeman, Silas WynLaegan and James Checketts), Paper Frogs (Melicen Barber and Mathew Schack), Trent Hawthorne, and Solid Merit, took part in the Amped Project where they participated in several workshops and gigs. They gained valuable experience and knowledge about the music industry in participating in this endeavour. To promote Amped, ex-student Nadia Reid visited the year 12 and 13 music class and performed a couple of songs.

Ten of our songwriters participated in five two hour workshops with Jenny Mitchell earlier in the year where they got the opportunity to hone their songwriting skills and techniques.

Outside of school this year Painted Blind have been preparing for an album release next year. Cox’s Orange have written an EP and started to record it. Saurian (Karl Brinsdon and Silas WynLaegan) has been working on writing an album throughout the year and have begun the recording process. Karl also organised Sonic Uprise, a free event in Mosgiel. Barney Conolly released his solo album, “Same Person Different Face” earlier in the year. Carmina have been working on some tunes that will be ready to release in the near future. Neive Strang released her debut album, “Expectations”. In addition to this all of these bands have been regularly gigging to audiences across Dunedin.

As always, a highlight of the music year is the Youth Week Concert, traditionally held on the last lunch-time of term 3. Once again, this was a calendar highlight, attracting a good-sized mosh-pit in front of the stage, and everybody enjoying the music and the atmosphere. Many of the bands mentioned above plied their wares to a great reception.