Congratulations to our student Jay Y for winning Karl Jenkins Composition Award!

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that Jay Y, Year 12 from Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong, has won the prestigious 2019 Karl Jenkins Composition Award with his piece titled West Lake Pavilion.

The Jenkins Award is open to participating schools in the International Schools Choral Music Society. ISCMS focuses on collaboration, innovation, creativity and passion to achieve its mission. It challenges its members to combine cultures with diverse customs and history to develop a collaboration of music from around the world. The ISCMS festival has been enjoyed by audiences from all over the world for over a decade and continues to grow in popularity with each passing year.

Jay's piece will be performed by the combined ISCMS choir and orchestra at the gala concert in the Shanghai Symphony Concert hall on the February 23. The concert will feature performances from 26 international schools worldwide, with close to 100 students from 7 Dulwich College International schools participating.  

Jay wrote the following as a background to his composition.

"The West Lake in Hangzhou is renowned as one of the most beautiful natural lakes in China, with countless poems reciting its beauty across the ages. The lyrics in this piece are inspired by a poem by Liu Yong, a poet from the Song dynasty, as he was traveling around the country. Dong Nan Xing Sheng literally means the South-East (where Hangzhou is located) is a prime location and Liu Yong elaborates on this by commenting on the splendor and beauty of both the city and the natural scenery.

The use of melisma reflects the natural stress and emphasis of Song Dynasty poetry, such as the poem by Liu Yong on which this piece is composed. Throughout the piece, melodies are echoed across all four vocal registers, resembling almost a canonical competition between four voices."

The judging panel highly praised Jay’s entry, writing: ‘It shows a good sense of musical structure. Its material is apt for its expressive purposes, and its melodic and harmonic ideas are distinctive."

We congratulate Jay for his amazing achievement and look forward to hearing his piece.