By JO HARRISON
Caption 1
Armidale High School’s Year 12 Combined Course 1 and Course 2 class. From left: Olivia Grzazek, Angus Gallagher, Samuel Kreusler, Liam Lea, Igraine Spiers and Nicholas Kelly. Winners of 11/12 Class Section, with their own arrangement of Life’s a Happy Song by Bret McKenzie.
Caption 3: Emily Thompson performing a violin concerto no. 2 in G major.
Caption 4: Year 4 students from St John’s Junior School perform a piece by C.J Dennis.
Caption 5: John de Veau receives special appreciation from President of the 2013 Armidale Eisteddfod Society Susanne James for volunteering as a session co-ordinator for 30 years.
A JAM-PACKED four weeks of the 2013 Armidale Eisteddfod has come to an end with a gala performance held in the auditorium of the Old Teacher’s College on Sunday afternoon.
A showcase of some of the best performances from this year’s event took to the stage to celebrate the huge diversity of young musical talent being nurtured in the region and to give thank to the volunteers who make it all happen.
President of the 2013 Armidale Eisteddfod Society and Director of The New England Conservatorium of Music (NECOM) Susanne James said this year’s Eisteddfod has been overwhelming in the number of entries and quality of the performers.
“Everyone in the New England should be really proud of our young musicians,” Susanne James said.
“The adjudicators have all been very positive and supportive of the standard and the quality, particularly for our very young performers.”
According to Ms James, Armidale is becoming a hub for musical education across the Northern Tablelands.
“We really are a wonderful oasis of fantastic fertile musical culture and I wish that it could be like this all over New South Wales,” she said.
“The New England Conservatorium of Music (NECOM) is the nucleus, we provide an enormous number of teachers out to the schools as well as having a sequential program of choirs and instruments here at the con itself.
“It is this wonderful synergy that we can bring to individual schools in the community a huge amount of extensive music that no one school or person could present.”
In recent years, the Armidale Eisteddfod has been under threat with dwindling numbers of volunteers able to give up their time to organise and run the event.
The Armidale Eisteddfod Society now needs more volunteers to help.
“It comes at a huge cost, this year had fewer volunteers in the past and because of everyone’s lives are so busy we were often scrambling to have enough people helping us in the sessions,” Ms James said.
“We will be having our annual general meeting in the next couple of months and will be looking for all of the positions on the committee which will be open for people to volunteer. We really need people to step up.”
