This year was a great one for chamber music at Logan Park High School. In June we had 13 chamber groups, including 3 groups with non-Logan Park students, perform in the Otago Regional CMNZ competition.

Five of these groups got into the finals. Honorable mentions go to Cameron Monteath for winning Highly Commended composition with his avant garde piece ‘Warte Noche’ for recorders, violin and piano. The Safety Scissors, (Cameron, Cathy Zeng and Paxton Hall) performed this composition. Cameron was also the pianist of Unsung Heroes (also including Sarah de Vries from Otago Girls and Boudewijn Keenan from Otago Boys) that won the local competition and then competed in the Regional finals in Christchurch. Cindy Chou got into the finals in two separate groups (Wolfgang Takes the Train and Multi Kulti Spaghettieis). The first of these groups also featured Alexander Sun (piano) and Isaac Randel (clarinet). In the Spagettieis Cathy performed with two students from Columba College. Another stand-out group was the Hedgeclippers playing a showcase piece of three pianists (6 hands on one piano; the hands being those of Sophie Sun, Cathy Zeng and Elia Hayashishita). The saxophone quartet Uncharted Territory featuring Lealia Devereux, Piper MerKerracher and Jayden Jesudhass, played beautifully, but unfortunately and disappointingly did not make the finals >:(. Another group to make the final, (as they did last year) was the jazz combo, the Itty Bitty Small Band.

Many hours of individual and group rehearsal go into preparing for these competitions. The often wacky group names (the Hedgeclippers, the Trees, Augmented Second, the Bling Blang Quintet, Sunken Waltz, Honk 2) make light of the effort behind the scenes. A very wide range of repertoire, from Mozart to Monteath, Herbie Hancock to Mischenkov, dazzled the audience. It was another great weekend for Logan Park music!

Results

1st place: Unsung Heroes

Adjudicators award to Wolfgang Takes the Train

Highly Commended awards to the Hedgeclippers and the Multi Kulti Spaghettieis

KBB award: Unsung Heroes

Best performance of an NZ work: the Safety Scissors

Composition award: Cameron Monteath