Concerted effort to develop musical skills

Top student musicians are honing their talents with a
series of public performances, writes HEATH LEES.

Throw them in at the deep end of public performance. That's the turnaround at the School of Music at Auckland University, which has traditionally kept its students out of the public eye and free from the pressures of big concerts.

Head of the school Karen Gryls sees it as a way of "sharing our excitement at the performances of these gifted musicians." Billed as Young Profiles, the first mini-series of top-grade student performers begins tonight at 8, and runs for three consecutive Mondays at the school's Music Theatre in Symonds St. Entry is by donation.

Violinist Simeon Broom is first up, but no stranger to public performance since he won the school's inaugural Concerto Competition last year and turned in a remarkable performance of Elgar's Violin Concerto to a large audience in Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Next Monday it's the turn of soprano Na-Young Kim, already building a profile in New Zealand since she's been soloist with the major choirs in Hamilton and Auckland, and is in the NBR New Zealand Opera chorus.

Anna Maitland, whose concert is on May 21, is set to take off overseas for her "finishing" course at a music college, probably in Europe. Her passion for chamber music has her joining with other musicians in a programme that spans three centuries.

All three emerging performers know that it doesn't stop at just "getting the gigs" and playing well. You have to develop your own audience, and market what you do. So each builds a support group, phoning round a list of friends and contacts, charming people into coming to their concerts along with their friends - the more the better.

Young musicians have to compete with so many other events and so have to put aside any natural modesty and push their talents and promote what they will deliver on the night.

That emphasis on marketing demands concerts with short, memorable titles. Broom opted for The Art of the Violin, Maitland picked Flute Fantasy, and Kim hopes for good weather to make her title, Midsummer Night's Dream, seem as apt as the songs she's chosen to fit it.

The students are being paid for these concerts. "But not much," they add quickly, like true professionals. Further down the track, each has to find thousands of dollars to pay for training overseas, so they are trawling around for all the scholarships and prizes they can get.

"This concert series helps us get known, which is really good for fundraising," says Kim.

Maitland points out that they're always looking for new ways of keeping in touch with their own funding supporters.

"E-mail is great," says Broom. "You can tell everyone how you're doing all at once, and it's cheap too".

Ultimately, though, it's the professional exposure that they welcome with open arms. At their stage, with everything to play for, today's exposure might just become tomorrow's fame.