Rockquest by Dan Kendrick

Music News

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It was a busy and successful month of music-making for the LPHS Music Department, with Rockquest, chamber music and choir competitions all taking place during June.

Rockquest

Five groups containing Logan Park students participated in the Smokefree Rockquest heats on June 9, with three of those groups being selected for the Otago Regional Final the following weekend. Outstanding performances at the regional final resulted in Carmina (Barney Connolly, Benny Holloway, Bjorn Bargemann and Jack Wing) taking out first place, with Painted Blind (Neive Strang, Rikke Kikkawa-McLeod, Cuba Rust and Mary Locker) being awarded second place. Painted Blind also won the APRA lyric award and Neive Strang won the award for best vocalist. Both groups are now preparing their video submissions for consideration for the national finals, and the chance to win up to $10,000 worth of prizes.

Chamber Music

The recent Chamber Music New Zealand competition saw 38 chamber music groups from Dunedin high schools perform at Marama Hall over two days. Logan Park fielded ten groups, as well as one mixed school group including our very own Cameron Monteath. All of the participating groups put a huge amount of preparation into their performances, and three groups containing Logan Park students were selected for the final. All of these groups gained awards for their efforts.

Cameron Monteath’s group Aurora Verdi took out the top award with their stunning performance, winning the Otago competition and going on to perform at the Southern Regional Final in Christchurch, where they competed against the top groups from Nelson, Christchurch, Timaru and Southland.

Farr Out, consisting of Emmanuel Wong, Cathy Zeng and Cameron Monteath were awarded Best Performance of a New Zealand Composition for their performance of a Gareth Farr piece, while the KBB Music award for groups containing brass, woodwind or percussion was awarded to our brass group ‘Soup’, consisting of Finn McKinlay, Colin Macandrew, Ben Dubyk and Desiree Heinze-Farrington.

Choir

The choir competed in the Big Sing, delivering a polished performance that reflected the many hours of rehearsal that went into their preparation. They gained a commended award for their efforts and are now working on a selection of brand new repertoire.