News Archive

Three graduates from The University of Western Australia's School of Music have won prestigious scholarships to the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne.

Fourth-year students Tom Higham (22) of Subiaco and Kiran Phatak (21) of Scarborough and third-year student Julie Igglesden (20) of Yokine will begin their scholarships in February next year.

Tom plays the viola, Kiran is a flautist and Julie plays the oboe.

"It will be fantastic to be with people who are as motivated as we are and who are also aiming for orchestral careers, or, like me, hoping to be a member of a touring string quartet," Tom said.  "We're really lucky that Australia has an academy like this, because there aren't many in the world."

"The scholarships give us the opportunity to perform all the time and to be with like-minded people," Julie said.  "And there are many more performance opportunities in Melbourne than here in Perth."

Scholarships for the National Academy - Australia's only national, purely performance-based music training institution - are highly competitive and contested by some of the nation's finest young musicians.

Academy students work on a broad range of styles and genres in one-to-one lessons, classes and seminars with many of Australia's leading performers and teachers and an impressive roster of international and Australian artists.

Media references

Tom Higham
Julie Igglesden
Kiran Phatak
Danielle Loiseau (Acting Administrative Project Officer, School of Music)  (+61 8)  6488 3994
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716