Noah's mum Anita Rudd laughed when she heard her son had been shoulder-tapped.
"It's not the paradigm in which we work. We are very much local school people. Going to King's was completely out of the question."
But King's College head of music Paul West rejects the poaching claims and says it was more a throwaway line.
"I could have followed it up and found out who the player was but I didn't. When you see a great player it's not a poach, it's just a comment."
He says the school has limited full scholarships on offer but he would rather invest money on training pupils than cherry-picking from schools.
But King's marketing programme is raising eyebrows. In a week where thousands of Auckland secondary school music students have competed in the KBB Music Festival, King's has taken out on-air ads during a top rating breakfast show promoting the school's music department. And they took out a full page advertisement for scholarships in the Big Sing programme.
West, who recently arrived in New Zealand from teaching stints in Singapore and London, says they were perfect marketing opportunities to let people know about music scholarships on offer at King's and he had "no idea quite how prickly everyone would be about it".
The head of a large Auckland state secondary school, who did not want to be named but has lost several top musicians in recent years to private colleges, says it's disappointing when a school has invested a significant amount of time and money on lessons, instruments and musical opportunities only to have a student lured away when they have reached a high standard.
Auckland itinerant music teacher Bev Brockelbank says some schools seem to have a shopping list of desirable instrumentalists to fill gaps in the competitive chamber music and orchestra environment.
"We all know it's going on but this is not sport, it's arts and culture."