Rose Light is a 17 year old violinist who grew up in Coffs Harbour. She joined the Bellingen Youth Orchestra and Sinfonia in 2019 and held the positions of Concertmaster and Principal Violinist in early 2020. Rose states she ‘absolutely loved being a part of the wonderful Bellingen music community and is incredibly grateful to the BYO for providing countless opportunities for me to perform and to receive coaching from musicians from the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Acacia String Quartet and the Australian Haydn Ensemble’. A lot has changed for Rose since 2020. She is now continuing her journey as a violinist in Aotearoa New Zealand! She was awarded the Licentiate in Music Diploma (LMusA) with Distinction in 2022. Over the past year, and has been selected as a Semi Finalist in the NZ National String Competition 2021, her piano trio won the Silver Award at the 2021 National Chamber Music Competition and she was awarded first place in the Notable National Competition 2021. Rose is grateful to have had her achievements recognised by multiple awards including winning the Cecily Maccoll High Achievers Award DMMF 2021 and the Gillian Mapp Award for Outstanding Achievement Australia 2021. Her most joyous moments are when she is onstage with her musical peers. She has enjoyed organising sold-out concerts in Christchurch and performing around the country as part of the NZSO National Youth Orchestra, the University of Canterbury South Island Tour and the Adam Summer School. She is passionate about sharing the experience of classical music – the beauty of the compositions, the raw and deep emotions felt by spellbound concert-goers and the friendships that grow from learning and performing music with others. Rose is continuing to perform and to grow as a violinist. She plans to study a BMus majoring in Performance at the New Zealand School of Music. A goal of Rose’s is to contribute to enabling children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds to have the opportunity to enjoy classical music as a hobby, or to pursue it as a career. She has benefited greatly as a young musician from help provided by excellent teachers, friends, my local community and wonderful organizations such as the Bellingen Youth Orchestra who encourage many young musicians every year through their expert coaching. As a professional Rose would like to give back to enable other children to have opportunities to pursue their dreams in music.She looks forward to visiting Bellingen in the future to see how the music there has continued to flourish!
We look forward to having Rose return to the BYO community in the future and share her stories with us personally.
