VICTORIA STANMORE was not born in Newcastle (I know!), but she loves it a lot. So much so, she plans to return to the city once she has completed a masters degree in Sweden.
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“I want to inspire people who may have a small passion for music to make it bigger,” Stanmore said.
“Australians sometimes get sour about people going overseas to get an education.
“We have been honouring the classical music and the modern music of Europe for so long, we have honoured the composers, playing their music, why should it be any different with education?”
Australia blends and mixes many musical traditions, which Stanmore said was “beautiful”.
“We can honour each country for the music they have given us, and the people they have given us too,” she said.
Her studies will see her major in choral and orchestral conducting at Luleå University of Technology, Scandanavia’s northernmost university, under Erik Westberg.
It was after hearing the traditional song Trilo, conducted by Westberg, that her determination to study abroad was steeled. She will commence in September.
The 24-year-old graduate of the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music says her passion for music came from her family.
“Everyone in my family is musical,” she said. “We even had several bagpipe players.”
In senior high school, Stanmore boarded at the Scots School, Albury.
“The music and performing arts at Scots were exciting and inspiring,” she said.
She arrived in Newcastle in 2014, where she majored in classical violin.
The cost of her studies in Sweden will be $72,500. However, she is hoping her tuition will be wavered for her second year. A possibility extended to extremely talented foreign students. The Swedes enjoy a free education.
Ms Stanmore has been working three jobs and teaching music to raise enough money to pay for first semester tuition, $18,000. So far, this effort totals $10,000.
“From the time they said ‘you’re in’ to when I needed the money has been such a short amount of time,” she said.
She has until June 10 to raise the remaining $8000. Some of that she hopes will come from a variety concert to be held at Adamstown Uniting Church Hall on July 20.
Stanmore will perform violin, along with Nova Bella’s, Aurora Chorealis, members of Echology, and some of her young students, aged 4-10, will perform in an ensemble.
Tickets at trybooking.com. Doors open at 6pm. If you can’t make it to the concert donations accepted via GoFundMe.
