How do you get 300 music students to listen to each other? You promise them the opportunity to perform at Parliament House.
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Music filled the auditorium of Canberra Grammar School on Friday, as an orchestra, a concert band and a choir worked together in preparation for the 20th Australian Combined Schools Music Festival.
This year the festival has brought together more than 300 young musicians from schools across Australia for three days of rigorous rehearsals, culminating in the two hour festival concert in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Saturday.
Performing everything from Carmina Burana to Tchaikovsky, students range from Year 7 to 12 and hail from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT and South Australia.
Overseeing the concert are conductors Dr Ingrid Martin, Sam Allchurch and Benjamin Northey, as well as one of Australia's pre-eminent conductors, Mr Richard AO, the founding music director and conductor emeritus of Victoria Opera.
Canberra Grammar has now hosted the biennial festival five times since its inception, and this year 75 students are representing the school.
The school's director of music, Craig Woodland, is also 2017 festival director.
"It's a great opportunity to come together and work at a level that a school by itself can't," Mr Woodland said.
Quinn Weber, music captain of Canberra Grammar, plays the saxophone. He said the "musicianship [had] risen significantly over the last several days".
"It's a challenge: rehearsing, even for just one day, but not many people get to perform at Parliament House."
Year 11 student Esther Mctingue is among the first cohort of female students at Canberra Grammar since it introduced co-ed schooling this year.
As part of the choir, she said rehearsals had been "really fun, but exhausting".
"But it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collaborate with so many students," Esther said.
For Christchurch Symphony Orchestra's Benjamin Northey, the 2017 festival was his first time rehearsing with secondary school students; a fact he said he frequently forgot.
"I've treated them as professionals and they respond in kind," he said.
"The experience has been very inspiring and a great reminder of the musical talent in schools and the quality of teaching."
Cherin Lee, a Year 12 violinist from Brisbane's Somerville House, said this was her third time participating in the festival.
"It's been great catching up with friends from the previous festival and meeting new friends this time round," she said.
Watching the conductors "unify the sections" was particularly inspiring, she added.
Ahead of Saturday's concert, Mr Northey said the greatest challenge for students lay in working as a team.
"Music teaches you to listen to each other," he said.
The festival concert is open to the public at Parliament House.
Students hail from Ascham School, Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Brisbane Grammar School, Burgmann Anglican School, Canberra Girls Grammar School, Canberra Grammar School, Radford College, Somerville House, Sydney Grammar School, Wesley College and Westminster School.
