Brisbane tour a hit
By Jack Gooden, Year 11, St Augustine’s College
SAINTS students enjoyed an action-packed itinerary on the recent music and drama tour to Brisbane, which included attending the musical Beautiful and the play Jasper Jones at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre.
Students also took a twohour technical backstage tour of our state’s premier performance facility.
It was a great thrill to actually walk on to the Lyric Theatre stage set of Beautiful.
Drama students also attended a workshop run by the Shake’n’Stir company and the tour concluded with a bus tour around Brisbane, which included visiting Mt Coot-tha lookout.
The tour also took in the Queensland Catholic Colleges music festival held at Villanova College in Coorparoo, Brisbane.
Thirty-nine boys took part in the festival and they certainly produced some golden notes, performing in four sections in B Grade: St Augustine’s College small ensemble – chamber strings, jazz band, choir and the Combined Colleges’ Concert Band.
Each group was awarded the gold standard for their efforts, with the Combined Colleges’ String Orchestra awarded a silver award.
Conductors Cherie Spannenburg, Chris Burcin and Malcolm Cole were all very pleased with and proud of the students’ performances.
It was a wonderful experience for our students to perform at this event that attracts over 15,000 students and 570 ensembles from 115 Catholic colleges from around Queensland and Australia.
Adjudicators’ comments included “what a lovely band”, “congratulations on such a fine choir”, “wonderful performance by your principal violinist” and “a real class act”.