Talented conductor wins scholarship

Talented conductor wins scholarship

Promising young conductor Tianyi Lu has been named as this year’s recipient of the Anne Reid Memorial Trust Scholarship. Valued at up to $20,000 the award will allow the talented musician to travel to the United Kingdom to study at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in October.

Established in 2002, the scholarship commemorates Anne Reid who studied and taught at the University of Canterbury and the National University of Singapore. It is awarded to a top PhD or master’s students wanting to study overseas.

The twenty-three-year-old resident from Greenlane was awarded the scholarship from a shortlist of six other contenders. Originally she studied at The University of Auckland completing a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours in Flute Performance with Professor Uwe Grodd. She then headed off to the University of Melbourne to study for a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting with Professor John Hopkins.

Her broad musical interests have led her to study the baroque flute, viola da gamba, harpsichord and electronic music composition at Auckland. She is also a singer and has performed at St Paul's Cathedral, London and the Esplanade, Singapore with The University of Auckland Chamber Choir. She has won a number of awards, including first prize in the New Zealand Woodwind Competition and top awards in the Douglas Lilburn and Llewellyn Jones composition competitions.

She is sought after as a young conductor in Australasia and she recently co-founded the Hopkins Sinfonia in Melbourne conducting its inaugural concert of Shostakovich and Rachmaninov in May.

“Conducting as a profession is difficult and highly competitive. It’s hard to pinpoint precisely what makes a good conductor. It’s more than just technique and ability. You must be able to work with and lead the orchestra to bring out their best to move the audience. When it works, it can be like magic. This award will help me to travel to Europe and develop my skills further and expand my experiences. I am really grateful” says Tianyi.

At the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama she will continue her conducting studies for a further two years. Then she hopes to secure guest conducting roles, become an assistant conductor of a professional orchestra or start her own ensemble or orchestra.

The University of Auckland’s National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries comprises the School of Architecture and Planning, Elam School of Fine Arts, the Centre for Art Studies (CAS), the School of Music and the Dance Studies Programme.

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