Centenary Scholarship

On a warm sunny Mothers’ Day afternoon, the Callaway Music Auditorium was an appropriate place for enjoying fine performances from all five entrants for the Centenary Scholarships. It was fitting too, that one of the works performed was by a mother (with two children) – and an Australian mother at that.

As explained by our President, this concert was a showcase, as each of the applicants had previously performed for, and been interviewed by, the adjudicators (Darryl Poulsen and Paul Wright), who had then made their decision.

It was further stressed that they were judged not only on their playing, but equally by the projects they were proposing for the use of the scholarship.

To mark the Club’s centenary year, two scholarships were being offered.

The one worth $5,000 went to Emily Saito-Noble, coincidentally the young pianist who played the piece Valley of the Rocks by the Australian mother, Miriam Hyde, along with a virtuosic Chopen étude.

She proposes to use the scholarship to continue lessons with the famed pianist Maria João Pires, both online and in person in Portugal.

The second scholarship for $3,000 was given to Jeffrey Shield, winner of the Geoffrey Lancaster Keyboard Prize in 2025, who on this occasion played Chopin’s first Ballade.

He is the only Australian among the 24 semi-finalists in the junior section of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition being held in USA in June.

Thanks to a generous donation from the Seah family, a third scholarship worth $2,000 was granted to Emma Luckley, who gave a fine account of two movements from Bach’s second Cello Suite. This grant will help to cover her expenses for a planned trip to southern Europe to trial and purchase a professional level cello crafted by an independent luthier.

Ted Godderidge left the audience wanting more after he had played part of a work for clarinet and piano by Chausson, while guitarist Nicholas Sia also impressed with the Suite del Recuerdo by Argentinian composer José Luis Merlin.

John Meyer