TEEN IN TUNE FOR MUSIC CAREER

TOWNSVILLE Grammar student and aspiring pro-bassoonist Aimee Segal hopes to one day play with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and then go international.

The 14-year-old last week topped the 13-15 woodwind solo at the Townsville Eisteddfod, beating out three flautists.

Aimee (pictured) said she was very happy and honoured to win the award, especially as she looked up to her competitors, who she described as “amazing”.

“I’m only a new musician,” Aimee said, revealing she has been playing the bassoon for just over two years after playing the recorder for four.

“I hope for it to become the thing that I do when I leave school.

“I would like to start off in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra … then maybe internationally, but that’s a really big dream.”

For the uninitiated, a bassoon is a woodwind instrument of the oboe family that has a large note range.

Aimee estimates she is one of maybe three of four bassoonists in all of Townsville.

She said practising the instrument was her way to “get away from reality and get into the music”.

But the journey has been made particularly difficult this year.

Aimee normally practises for an hour each day, but since evacuating from her Idalia home due to the floods, it has been hard to get in those hours in the apartment her family currently lives in.

Nonetheless, the high school student has been supported by Townsville Grammar to practise during lunch breaks and after hours in the music room.