UNE student receives award for music composition

October 25, 2007

Jenny Bakon, a UNE Music student, has received a national award from the Fellowship of Australian Composers (FAC) for excellence in music composition.

She received the award – for "Most Promising Composition, 2007" – earlier this month at UNE Music's second Campus Composers Concert for the year. The concert included one of Ms Bakon's compositions.

This is the first year that the University of New England has been involved in the annual awards program, which is administered by the FAC in association with selected Australian educational institutions and with the assistance of the Australasian Performing Rights Association. Potential recipients were chosen from current Bachelor of Music students, with the award-winning candidate being selected by UNE Music staff.

The Armidale composer Ann Ghandar (who recently retired from UNE Music, where she was an Associate Professor) secured UNE's involvement in the program and – on behalf of the FAC – presented Ms Bakon with her award. (THE PHOTOGRAPH of Jenny Bakon displayed here expands to include Ann Ghandar. It was taken at the presentation ceremony.)

"This award is representative of the unique focus that UNE has towards composition as an integral part of the research and study of music," said Steve Thorneycroft, lecturer in composition at UNE.

"Composition is a creative activity," Mr Thorneycroft explained, "through which can be gained a depth of musical understanding that can’t always be attained by just looking from the outside in. All our students have the opportunity to look from the inside out as well! Jenny’s efforts across all subject areas have been exemplary, and she well deserves the recognition given by this award."

The award carries a prize of $500 as well as a year's free membership of the FAC.

The Campus Composers Concert series has been a twice-yearly event at UNE ever since its introduction by Associate Professor Ann Ghandar in the early 1970s.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at October 25, 2007 03:10 PM