Firsts for Kendall Violin Competition
From the Summer 2007 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.
L to R: Jonathon Mui, winner of the 2007 Kendall Violin Competition, the TimberLay Travel Scholarship and the Lee Family award; Alice Higgins semi-finalist; Sonja Schebeck, winner of the awards for Best Bach Performance, the award for Best Performance of an Australian Composition and People’s Choice award; and Doretta Balkizas semi-finalist. Photo by Lyndal Coote.
The winner of the 2007 Kendall Violin Competition landed more than one first this year: he is the youngest winner in the history of the competition and also the first to win a new international travel scholarship.
Jonathan Mui is just 15 years old, but he now has his hands on a new Caldersmith violin as well as the Timberlay International Travel Scholarship.
As well as Jonathan’s trio of firsts, second place getter Sonja Schebeck took out three other awards of $500. These awards were for best performance of two movements from a Bach sonata, the audience choice award and the award for the best performance of an Australian work written after 1970.
That in itself was yet another first for this competition: it was the premiere performance of the work ‘M. Leprefin’, a piece written for the solo violin by Chloe Charody, a final year student at the Sydney Conservatorium.
The Kendall Violin Competition began in 1999 when renowned Australian luthier Graham Caldersmith offered to donate a concert violin each year as a prize.
Kendall is on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. The village is named for Australian poet, Henry Kendall, who was also the first NSW Inspector of For-ests.
Forests NSW has sponsored the competition since its inception. The other major sponsor is AST Floors of Kempsey, who also added the TimberLay Interna-tional Travel Scholarship worth $3000 this year.
Sarah Chester Public Affairs & Media, Albury
