Student Achievements

Hayden Taylor Wins Place at Open Fanfare

Congratulations to Hayden Taylor, one of our Year 11 students at Box Hill High School, who has been selected to participate in Open Fanfare, a new creative development program from Artology, which provides a unique opportunity for budding young composers aged 12 to 21. 

His composition 20th Century Blast was selected from over 100 entries submitted this year. Hayden will participate in three workshop sessions and have his composition performed by the Queensland Youth Orchestras at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre on the 30th September. 

Artology received over 100 entries from young people across Australia aged 12-21, to take up the challenge to come up with a 30-second musical work to stop people in their tracks. 

Winning participants have the opportunity to work with industry professionals, a conductor, sound engineers and musicians. They will also receive a copy of the studio recording and qualify for an Australia Theatre for Young People Sound Design Scholarship.

 Hayden shares his experience...

This year I entered the Artology Fanfare competition and won a place in the Open Fanfare program. To enter I composed a 30 second orchestral fanfare titled '20th Century Blast', which involved writing for over 15 instruments and percussion. Winning this place grants me workshops with professional composers to revise and prepare my piece, prior to a performance and recording with the Queensland Youth Orchestra at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. I will also get to meet other young composers and work with the orchestra in rehearsals.

As an almost entirely self-taught composer I was overjoyed that my music had been chosen, particularly as many of the other winners are first- or second-year university composition students. This is the first time my music is to be played by a live orchestra and talking to the professional composers about how prepare music for a performance has been very insightful.

When composing I am most inspired by the works of many composers from the 19th and 20th centuries. I particularly love the Russian style of composition including composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Alfred Schnittke. For the fanfare I wrote, I also drew inspiration from the French composer Olivier Messiaen. When composing this piece, I started with a piano score where I wrote down some initial ideas, which I then expanded into the complete orchestral work.

To me, music represents a form of art and self-expression that I can engage with. I have never been particularly into fine art but have always loved music and the way composers are able to express complicated ideas and emotions through it. Many of my favourite composers told rich and heartfelt stories through their music, and this is something I wish to capture in my own music.

 - Hayden Taylor, 11Z