kateedgertrust

FUNDED BY THE ENTERPRISE OF

Menu

Category: School Competition 2023

Elaine Zhang – Kristin School – 2nd

June 29, 2023

[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”2″ bottom_padding=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ align_horizontal=”align_center” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ shift_y_down=”0″ z_index=”0″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_single_image media=”77920″ media_width_percent=”70″ alignment=”center” media_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DG2TxxeQg-ZU”][vc_column_text]From the artist:
This video depicts, through snapshot scenes of my life, how music is the thread that binds
my experiences together.

Elaine Zhang
Kristin School[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Elisa Prattley – Howick College – 1st

I call it poetry because I’m scared to sing,
yet I act like I could be music’s next thing.
I can’t read sheet music and I don’t play guitar,
but I can write a story in semblance of a song.

I’d like to compose a beautiful melody,
woven together with lovely stories
and played for people to sing-along
like they’re reliving the memories
euphorically.

I listen to the radio
and I hear the voices of music flow
into my heart and through my veins
swirling my world like a hurricane,
lifting me off my feet and into space,
daydreaming the power of music awake.

It’s not just sounds or voices or notes,
and doesn’t get played without being heard.
It feels and it hurts and you hear the words
that speak to you emotionally when others don’t.

I scream and dance and I sing to romance songs
like I wasn’t crying to Lewis Capaldi the morning long.
As I sit on the school bus or clean my room,
music plays (Harry Styles on queue).

We’re always trying to escape.
Find a distraction to daily woes.
Something to free our shoulders from the weight
of having to live outside fairytales.

Elisa Prattley
Howick College

Anabel Wu – Epsom Girls Grammar School – Highly Commended

From the artist:  It’s a common experience for east Asian kids to be encouraged to play instruments when they’re younger – I associate playing the piano strongly with my childhood. I used a music box to convey feelings of nostalgia and how music can trigger vivid memories and emotions. (Materials: acrylic on card)

Anabel Wu
Epsom Girls Grammar School

Bridget Kirton – Epsom Girls Grammar School – Highly Commended

From the artist:  Music has a direct influence on people, it provides the ability to control an environment, a blanket between someone and the world. Music fills out the spaces in your mind where thoughts can start to fester. The tone of a song can influence emotion and provide it a channel. This is what I wanted to represent in this painting.

Bridget Kirton
Epsom Girls Grammar School

Kelly Lim – Selwyn College – Finalist

From the artist:  Music explains strange emotions through different sounds and is a fresh experience every time I listen to it. It brings me back to my childhood when many concepts were too complex for me to understand, yet life seemed simple and new. Music lets my childish imagination run wild.

Kelly Lim
Selwyn College

Xi Li – St Cuthbert’s College – Finalist

Quivering arrow.
Taut bowstring discharges, and sings.
Its pulse strikes my hands,
and trembles a bashful beat.
A symphony in each breath.

 

Xi Li
St Cuthbert’s College

From the author:
I crafted my tanka to express the nature of music because tanka’s syllabic limits allows me to capture its nuance, where each word is vital. While tanka and haiku both share syllable limitations, I chose tanka for its emotional depth. Interestingly, tanka translates to “short song,” echoing the musical sensation I felt through a drawn bowstring.

Madeleine Walker – Diocesan Walker – Finalist

I write in many formats, but my first experience with crafting my own passage of words was
when I was seven or eight, bashing out a score of deranged orchestration on my
grandmother’s Yamaha. Growing up in a music-blooded family certainly gave me a push in
the right direction, as it wasn’t often when I was not surrounded by melodies and lines of
lilting notation. At thirteen, I had written my first album of songs. It was during the lockdown
period, and I found myself enjoying the time I spent poured over the black and white keys for
endless weeks, thankful for something to occupy my mind that wasn’t staring at a computer.
As time went on, I began to cling to my unhinged musical composition as if it was my
lifeline. It was the thing that stayed with me – when I moved schools because of a deep level
of harassment from peers, and getting through the weeks away from home because of
boarding in this new environment. After school days, I would lock myself in a forgotten room
full of windows because of the tired piano at the wall, layered with dust and old memories. I
would be lost for hours in the magical vibrations, any worry or pain kindly melting at the
pedals beneath my feet. I am now sixteen, and musical composition is just one of many ways
I poetically experiment with words. I do not spend as much time sleeping with my forehead
on the ivories as I once did, but I will forever remember the importance of music in one of
the hardest times in my life. My world would be immensely different without the intervention
of conscientiously structured sound, and I am forever grateful it has found its way to me.

Madeleine Walker
Diocesan School for Girls

 

From the author:
I have entered a personal prose on my experience with musical composition growing up. I explore the impact music has had on me in the past, and how it has helped me grow into a fulfilled individual with a passion for the creative world.

Shae-Lee Bond – Bay of Islands College – Finalist

In the realm of melodies, a magic unfurls,
Music, the language that shapes my world.
With harmonies and rhythms, it paints a scene
Stirring emotions, where dreams interven.

Through symphonies and ballads, it finds a way,
To touch my soul, in colours that don’t fade,
It speaks of joy, of love, and of despair,
The highs and lows, it’s always there.

When darkness lingers, and shadows grow,
Music lights the path, a celestial glow.
It lifts me up, when i stumble and fall,
Whispers of hope, it weavers through it all.

In its embrace, I find solace and peace,
A sanctuary where worries find release.
It resonates deeply, with stories untold,
Unlocking memories, as they unfold

With every beat, my heart finds its sway,
Music’s enchantment, guiding the way.
It unites cultures, transcending all bounds,
A universal language, where unity resounds.

From classical symphonies to pulsing beats,
Music creates connections that cannot be beat.
It shapes my world, a symphony divine,
In its melodies, my spirit finds its rhyme.

So let the music play, in moments grand or small,
For it shapes my world, encompassing all.
With its power and grace, it sets me free,
Music, the essence that defines me.

Shae-lee Bond
Bay of Islands College

Emma Grazier – St Cuthbert’s College – Finalist

Soul Shine

You ask “How does music shape your world?”  Well, let’s see.

Crazy as it sounds, my Opa’s life was saved by music. My great grandfather adored the Opera, he would ride with two of his friends on their motorbikes for an hour every single weekend to see it. However, as a Jew he was seized in an attempt to flee the wa犀利士
r but by some miracle, the Nazi interrogating him was one of those two brothers, on the bikes, to the Opera in Vienna. With 24 hours and a blind eye turned, my Opa’s life was saved. Because that shared love of music and friendship was stronger than the politics of war. I wouldn’t be here without those trips.

Music holds our hand and keeps us steady when we want to crumble yet makes us feel like we’re flying when we want to touch the sky. After six years of chronic illness, now proudly 100% healthy, I can say first hand that music gave me an unjudgmental sanctuary. My playlist reflected where I was at every point on my journey and now being 100% healthy I’m making a new one that me feel like sunshine at every note.

Music moulds our world. I love to imagine my Opa sitting in that Opera House, beaming as those symphonies soared. To watch my Pa, his son, dance around the living room with my grandma his wife of 53 years, shining. Opera house or living room it all glimmers the same. Souls of the pieces and people whispering; thank you, thank you, thank you, to those we can see and those we can only sense.

So, if you want to ask me “How does music shape your world?”
I say it doesn’t. It creates it.

Emma Grazier
St Cuthbert’s College

 

From the author:
How music moulds the world, and my world. Music has a soul that connects us all and is strong enough to hold us up through the hardest parts of life such as wars and illness and there to celebrate in your happiest moment.

Bethany Cardozo – St Mary’s College – Finalist

From the artist:  These pieces depicts a person who suffers with Synesthesia. Synesthesia is a disorder which impa犀利士
cts the sensory functions, often combining and confusing them. A person with Synesthesia may experience Music through colour, and enhance psychological effects. The first series of images portrays the initial stage of ‘entering another world’ while listening to music. The second (bottom left) shows uncontrollable nature of Synesthesia – there is no off-switch. And the final, a person often crossing between reality and the sensory world.

Bethany Cardozo
St Mary’s College