1. Summarise your prior musical study and experience (250 words) 2. Briefly describe your knowledge and interest in specific musical repertoires (250 words) 3. Outline how tertiary study will assist you in your musical, professional or scholarly goals for the future (250 words) 1. Music and performing have always been a part of my life, commencing dancing at the age of 3. Around the age of 8, I was encouraged by a dance teacher to take up the drama and singing class and it was around that time that I fell in love with singing. I started taking private singing classes immediately and a few months later started participating in eisteddfods and other competitions. By the age of 10, I started taking lessons with a new teacher, who taught me classical technique and would always show me how and why we did things a certain way to ensure I could apply all the technique to any song I will ever sing and that is what set my singing apart. My love for music, singing and performing grew when I had the chance to attend the McDonald College of Performing Arts from grade 7 through to 12, excelling, even though my music theory background was almost nil compared to all my friends who had studied piano and music theory from young ages. I studied music for 2 hours per day, 5 days a week. Being a music vocal student, these lessons consisted of jazz vocal choir, music composition, music theory, contemporary music choir and madrigal choir. Being a soloist, through these classes I learnt the importance of blending within a group, ear training, how to compose music and also had the chance to sing various styles of music, having to perform the entire score of Carmina Burana by Carl Orff being an example.

2. Growing up without a very musical family basically meant that all I really knew was Pop music and what was being played on the radio. My father has a love for Disco so Earth, Wind & Fire was heard around the house a few times, but all my knowledge and interest in certain genres has been self exploratory and self taught. An extremely pivotal point in my own musical exploration would have to be at age 12 when I decided to watch the movie, Ray, the biographical story of Ray Charles’ career and life. The movie and music touched me in a way that I can’t describe, I locked myself in my room for 2 days and looked up everything I could about Ray Charles and asked my Mum to buy me all of his music and from Ray Charles stemmed my love for Soul, Old School RnB, Jazz and Blues music. I started listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, George Benson, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Gladys Knight and from there listening to Negro Gospel Music because I fell in love with the emotion and the colours they could emote with their voice, Mahalia Jackson, Donnie McClurkin just to name a few. I think the key ingredient to all of these genres is soul, that the music and the voices themselves make you feel. For me, that has always been what I love most and what I strive for when I sing.