Music – Original Composition
Introducing the Music – Original Composition winners of our first ever Sydney Catholic Schools’ Lockdown Arts Festival.
To experience the unique compositional “voice” of each category winner and highly commended composer – including the creators’ descriptions of their own work – simply click on the three lines in the top right-hand corner of the video playlist below.
Early Primary (K-2)
School: Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School, NORTH STRATHFIELD
Title: Freedom Day Blues
I composed Freedom Day Blues to represent all the stages of the pandemic that Sydney has been through. The stages are represented by changes in the rhythm and key.
School: Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School, NORTH STRATHFIELD
Title: Lockdown Impromptu
Lockdown Impromptu by George Dai.
School: Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School, NORTH STRATHFIELD
Title: Petite Piece
This Spring, I’ve had time to practice my piano. I played Petite Piece by Aleksandr Fyodorovich Grodicke. He was a composer born in 1877 and died at 1957.
Middle Primary (3-4)
School: Our Lady Star of the Sea Miranda Catholic Primary School, MIRANDA
Title: Down the Way
My name is Gezel and I wrote this song during COVID and called it “Down the Way”. I’ve just been learning the ukelele and thought to combine the song and the instrument. It’s a song of hope for when COVID is gone.
School: Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School, CARNES HILL
Title: Walking Out of Lockdown
As a vocal group, we collaborated and created a spin off of Kacey and the Sunshine band’s “Walking on Sunshine”. We were challenged to record the piece as a solo act. This is my video. I hope it inspires you to get out in the sunshine and enjoy time with each other back at school out of lockdown.
Upper Primary (5-6)
School: St Charles Catholic Primary School, WAVERLEY
Title: Escaping Lockdown
This was a piece that I composed for my clarinet. It starts off low and quiet as we started lockdown and gets quicker and happier as the end of lockdown is nearing, but is still a bit concerned about what the end of lockdown will mean.
School: Fr John Therry Catholic Primary School, BALMAIN/ROZELLE
Title: This Prison
This was an original song written at the beginning of lockdown about my feelings at that time.
School: St Mark’s Catholoic Primary School, DUMMOYNE
Title: Down The River
I am Annalise Tambasco and my world has been upside down lately. One day when I was cleaning up dinner I started singing this tune, later that night the tune was put to words and the next day this song was done.
Lower Secondary (7-9)
School: St Clare’s College, WAVERLEY
Title: Dear Anxiety
Hi I’m Vevie and this is my original song, Dear Anxiety. I wrote this song to reflect on the mental challenges that lockdown brings, and to emphasize how important mental health is in this time. The song addresses anxiety by personifying it. This is one of my favourite aspects of the song, as I imagine my anxiety more as a person than a thing.
School: Bethlehem College, ASHFIELD
Title: Quarter To One
“Quarter To One” is an original song inspired by life in lockdown. The song follows the feelings involved with the continuous and stagnate daily life during lockdown, showing the humorous side of all the lockdown days blending together. I even included Doctor Who references to show that watching TV becomes a very prominent part of life. I wrote, performed and recorded this song, including the vocals and the piano, and have been singing and songwriting since I was four (I am now fifteen). Songwriting has always been a passion of mine and is a creative and emotional form of self expression to me.
School: Marist Catholic College, NORTH SYDNEY
Title: The Trapeze
It is a short composition I made during lockdown.
School: All Saints Catholic College, LIVERPOOL/CASULA
Title: When Will We
Long before the pandemic but more so since it began, we have been surrounded with social issues that have impacted us tremendously. The lockdown exposed me to a widespread propaganda of these issues through the media and social network as well as giving me time to think about how I can contribute towards making a change. This is a song I composed, expressing my sentiments.
School: St Mary’s Cathedral College, SYDNEY
Title: Bruises
Composed by myself, meant to reflect the struggles of lockdown and how it feels for it all to finally be over.
Upper Secondary (10-12)
School: Marcellin College, Randwick
Title: Outside
I have been writing music since 2018, however this is the first song that I wrote in lockdown. I intended it first to be a test, to show how much I had improved on my instrument over quarantine.
My submission is a shortened version of the third time I recorded the song over the last year. Each time I added something new or improved an existing track. I played every instrument on the recording (all guitars, bass guitar and drum kit).
For this competition I added a video of me playing the live guitar part over the recorded tracks. My overall goal for the song is to play back the original recording against my final recording when coronavirus is finally over, to compare them.
School: Champagnat Catholic College, PAGEWOOD
Title: Thought I’d Let You Know
Originally composed and lyrics written by Benjamin Valdeabella.
School: Marist College, EASTWOOD
Title: Nothing to Say
This was written about many things that have effected me through out my life. My brother is turning 18 soon – this related the first part, where I feel that I am not good enough to hang out with him.
The second part is written from my best friend’s perspective about me going through a hard part in my life where I couldn’t get out of the feeling depressed and trapped. This removed me from most of my friendships and he was always there to bring me back up to earth.
The last part is about my grandmother passing last year after losing a battle to cancer, talking about looking at her up at heaven “wonderland” and saying that there is nothing that can break the bond that we had and that the bond is still there.
School: Marist Catholic College NORTH SYDNEY
Title: Overcast
I attest that this is all my original work. I started writing this composition a couple of months ago, on an overcast afternoon. I used Musescore 3 to compose the piece.
Primary Class
School: St Francis Assisi Regional Catholic Primary School, PADDINGTON
Title: It’s Been A Long, Long Time…
St Francis students, teachers and families rocked their way through music lessons with Ricky Kradolfer each week of lockdown and can’t wait to get back to school again. Ricky wrote this song with the children and helped us to put together this rockin’ version of “Can’t Wait to get Back to School Again!”
Staff member or group
School: St Fiacre’s Catholic Primary School, LEICHHARDT
Title: The Burrow
I write music in my spare time and perform occasionally in some pubs and breweries around Sydney. The idea of the Lockdown Arts Festival got me super excited to write a song around the theme of ‘looking outwards from a life in lockdown’. This song, ‘The Burrow’, is about two rabbits being forced to shelter from a storm in their burrow. A scary situation at first, but they receive a bit of enlightenment in exchange for the bad situation, realising they don’t need much more than each other. An epiphany I, and hopefully many others, have had during our season of lockdown.
Family Submission
School: St Christopher’s Catholic Primary School, HOLSWORTHY
Title: At Home
By Marion and Audrey Choi.