ST CECILIA Music Scholarships founder Marianina de Rocco is writing a book to celebrate the group’s 20-year history.
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The book, which will not be complete until after the 20th concert in November this year, gives a chronological history of the scholarships, including photos and success stories of past winners, past committees and volunteers.
Flautist and flute teacher Ms de Rocco founded the South Coast Spiritualist Church in 1993, and the South Coast Music Society in 1994, then went about establishing a youth music program.
In 1995, she visited family in Italy, where communities were preparing festivities to honour the patron saint of music, Saint Cecilia.
Ms de Rocco said music was a way of life in Italy, whereas in Australia music studies represented a luxury, with meagre employment opportunities.
“It was this music starvation that prompted me to start the South Coast Music Society first, quenching the musical thirst of the adults,” Ms de Rocco writes in her book.
“The St Cecilia Music Scholarships came to life because, in my mind, the adult had been provided for with spiritual food and classical concerts - now I had to do something for music students.”
Ms de Rocco said the awards encouraged children to enter the “wonderful world of music” and gave them the opportunity to make music themselves until they reached the time they “could not live without it”.
The first St Cecilia Scholarships winner, in 1995, was Ayer Frantz, who played the piano, and took home $150.
The runner-up, Madelaine Plocki, won a wooden recorder and a 25 per cent discount voucher to a Batemans Bay music store.
Now, every October, auditions with independent adjudicators are held for music students aged from eight to 18.
Ten scholarships are awarded, ranging from $100 merit awards to $1000 scholarships, which can only be used to further the student’s musical education.
An award winners’ concert, where recipients and guests perform, is held close to St Cecilia’s Day, November 22.
Ms de Rocco said the program had supported almost 200 young people, with some going on to perform internationally and many making their living in the industry.
Scholarships winner in 2010 and 2011, violinist Jessie Regan, was accepted into the Australian Academy of Music in South Melbourne.
Soprano Krystle Innes, 2004 winner, played the female lead in the Canberra Philharmonic production of Hairspray, the Musical, in 2012.
The winner in 2013, violinist Rueben Oddy, is studying music at the Hochschule fur Musik (HfM) at Detmold, Germany.
Ms de Rocco has long stepped down from the scholarship’s organising committee, but hopes to organise a 20-year celebratory concert in July next year, in consultation with the current committee, to launch her book.
She hopes St Cecilia Music Scholarships will continue to encourage many more young musicians to follow their dreams.
“I want to make people understand, we don’t just teach music,” Ms de Rocco said.
“Music is part of the spirit.
“Music is not notes, music is something that touches you right in your heart.”