Nelson College and Nelson College for Girls students are back from Wellington with plenty to celebrate after a standout showing at the MusicWorks Ensemble Festival Aotearoa (MEFA).
Their concert band, jazz band and jazz combo all earned platinum awards at the five-day festival, held in Wellington from 21–25 September.
The combined group was the only one at the festival to pick up platinum awards across all three categories, the jazz combo won the top award, while the concert band was named first equal.
Around 20 students from both colleges, from Year 9 through to Year 13, made the trip north for the festival, which brings together school musicians from across the country.
“We’re very stoked, we definitely wanted to go over and above,” drummer Harry Reith says.
The students say that it’s their love of making music together that keeps them coming back.
“We just enjoy being in a group, playing our instruments,” saxophonist Tully King-Turner says.
“The teachers really contribute to it, too,” guitarist Grace Palmer adds.
As well as performing, the students spent the week watching other groups, taking part in workshops and learning from professional musicians.
Harry says, it felt like two festivals rolled into one, with the first half focused on classical groups before jazz ensembles took centre stage.
Each ensemble had a 30-minute slot to impress judges, meaning plenty of thought went into choosing the right mix of music.
Grace says that the groups wanted to show their versatility, mixing slower pieces with more technical numbers and including both vocal and instrumental performances.
One of the highlights was performing a piece written especially for the band by student Oliver Diamond.
Getting 20 students to Wellington for five days also took months of planning and fundraising.
“There was a lot of fundraising to be done... but we managed to pull it off and keep it affordable,” Tully says.
Grace says that the success wouldn’t have happened without the support of their families, music directors Nathan Munn and Brad Banks, along with Tessa Quayle and Patricia Anderson.
