This is the 6th year of the annual Kate Edger Trust School Competition sponsored by Timeless Images Photography and Academic Dress Hire. Once again, the entries received showed that we have an amazing pool of young talent in the creative arts. The judges were delighted with the variety and creativity in the interpretation of this year’s theme “How Does Music Shape Your World? “.
Thank you to all our entrants who took the time to share their stories and creativity, and congratulations to our finalists and winners.
The Kate Edger Trust would like to thank the following judges for the time and effort they put into the difficult task of selecting the winning entries:
Lisa Harrington – Sponsor and owner of Timeless Images Photography
Matt Ellwood – Artist and Head of Department of Fine Arts at Whitecliffe College
Carmel Bennett – MusicHelps charity organisation
Jane Horan – Kate Edger Trust Trustee and Awards Committee Member
Lisa Turvey – Academic Dress Hire Operations Manager
“ How Does Music Shape Your World“
Announcing Our Winning Entry
Many thanks to Timeless Images and Academic Dress Hire, proud sponsors of our annual School Competition.
Winning Entries Received:
- 1st $1,000 Cash Prize
- 2nd $500 Cash Prize
- 3rd $300 Cash Prize
Highly Commended $100
How Does Music Shape Your World - Top Entries
Congratulations to our Winning Entries
1st – Elisa Prattley
Howick College
Poetry
“This is a poem of what music means to me.”
2nd – Elaine Zhang
Kristin School
Video
” This video depicts, through snapshot scenes of my life, how music is the thread that binds my experiences together ”
3rd – Layla Woodland
St Cuthbert’s College
Poetry – Drop the Diamond
” Drop the diamond is a poem enlightening the audience about how music is within all of us and shapes our personal world shown through the extended metaphor of “dropping the diamond” on a vinyl record beginning our musical journey through our lives ”
Highly Commended – Anabel Wu
Epsom Girls Grammar School
Art
” 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.”
Highly Commended – Bridget Kirton
Epsom Girls grammar School
Art
” 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 “
The Kate Edger Educational Charitable Trust (KEECT) supports the promotion, advancement and encouragement of women within education, whether it be for research and professional activities, or for artistic and creative activities. The KEECT is one of the biggest supporters of women’s tertiary education in New Zealand, providing financial assistance of approximately $600,000 to over 100 women annually. Funding primarily comes from the proceeds from Academic Dress Hire, as well as generous private individuals and partner sponsors.
For further information, please contact:
Nina Tomaszyk | General Manager | Kate Edger Educational Charitable Trust
Phone: 09-358-1044 | Email: nina.tomaszyk@kateedgertrust.org.nz
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
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
Drop the Diamond
Drop the diamond…
Click…
The buzz of a turntable, the scratch of a needle
Open up portals, expansion of the thoughts, flesh and spirit.
Their beats so deep, they sink you
Under,
Growth,
Water,
Ground.
Sound.
It’s the pulse that breathes you back.
Back to neurological nebulas, black holes of bass, Saturn’s rings of guitar strings.
Shifted by mere echoes of time without linear pattern.
Emergence and departure harmonised,
Seen only through the awakened eye of painters of the stars.
This hallucination of the senses,
Taste the sweat soaked stage,
The blood of blistered hands.
Taste the tears expressed through strained throats,
Reflecting past lifetimes and those yet to be lived.
Through Pulsing,
Through Beating,
Drifting,
Drifting,
Click
You have been enlightened.
Layla Woodland
St Cuthberts, Auckland
From the author:
Drop the diamond is a poem enlightening the audience about how music is within all of us and shapes our personal world shown through the extended metaphor of “dropping the diamond” on a vinyl record beginning our musical journey through our lives.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
From the artist: The vibrance of music. The ability it holds to transform my world. My stairs become pianos, houses become music scores, distant planets become records, life becomes a musical daydream. Looking through my lens, this is what my world becomes when I listen, play, breathe music. What was tasteless evolves into freedom, colour, chaos, curiosity and peace.
Lily Brading
Elim Christian College
From the artist: This Photo shows how I feel when I listen to music, the way it transports me to another world where it’s just me enjoying the music.
Drayton Colson
Epsom Girls Grammar School
From the artist:
“From performing with friends to appreciating a song, this video showcases how music brings colour to our lives. Special thanks to Michael Feng, Leo Cheng, Martin Wang, Ronald So, and Kevin Zhan for helping!”
Eric Zhang
Kristin School