Scotch College

Australian Percussion Eisteddford

On the weekend of 27–28 August, five of our students entered the Australian Percussion Eisteddfod in Sydney. This was our first time in this event and I am very pleased to announce that the boys were placed in each section they entered.

John Au received highly commended in marimba and Andrew Yuen first place in xylophone – accompanied by David Dower. Oliver Blake excelled with two first prizes in solo snare drum and four mallet marimba.

In the ensemble section, the above-mentioned boys along with David Dower and Tom Gin obtained second place with two extremely exciting performances. As put by another teacher, the boys ‘set the room alive’ with outstanding performance skill, inspiring people whom I’d never met to rush up and congratulate me on the boys raising the bar for percussion performance. Our percussionists showed true Scotch Spirit, being humble in victory and showing great support to all other competitors, many of whom they had befriended at the Combined Schools Music Festival held here in August.

I am very proud of how our boys congratulated all of their competitors’ efforts and successes, with special mention to MLC Melbourne who also had a very successful eisteddfod.

Jude Hallum
Head of Percussion