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Home > MonaLisa News > Music Contest "Prima La Musica"

"Prima La Musica"-Music Contest

Tuesday, 11 March 2008

Hi, folks!

Does the term "Prima La Musica" mean anything to you?! I (Mona) will tell you something about our first experience with it:

"Prima La Musica" is an Austrian competition for music students. First the 9 state contests are held, in our case we took part in the Lower Austria contest (the most eastern state of Austria). If you are good enough and pass with distinction you are allowed to participate in the (Austrian) federal contest. There you compete against the other 8 state winners who are the best music students of Austria.

In order to take part in the contest you have to enroll, no matter which instrument you are playing. Then you have to play in front of a jury. All students playing the same kind of instrument (e.g. drums, guitar, trumpet, saxophone, horn, piano, ...) are assembled on one day. You get devided and only rated in your own age group.

For the first time Lisa and I took part in the "percussion-ensembles" category. Thomas F. (13) and Christoph W. (8), also students of the Orth an der Donau Music School, played with us.

In fall 2007 Michi Draskovits (our Music School drum teacher) asked us if we wouldn't like to participate in the contest as an ensemble with other students. Although we didn't have a real concept on what this would be, we agreed.

So it happened that we four met together at our Music School some day and Michael started to rehearse with us. We rehearsed up to three times a week, from December 2007 till March 2008. It was lots of fun and we learned very much, e.g. to play by notes or to play on instruments which we never had used before.

The contest for the percussionists took place on Tuesday the 11th March 2008, namely at the Zeillern Castle, near Amstetten (Lower Austria). Michael gave us a drive which was very funny but also rather long.

As we arrived there (at about 11 am) we had a bare half hour to install our instruments and to warm up. Then the jurors came in and invited us to start!

The "4 Head Chefs" (f.l.t.r.): Thomas , Mona, Christoph, Lisa

Check out the video we've taped at another gig!

The first piece was a very funny but difficult one, named "A Little Dining Serenade" (after Mozart's "Little Evening Serenade"). We put on chef's caps and kitchen aprons. By the way, we called ourselves "The 4 Head Chef Drummers". With cooking spoons (instead of sticks) we played on tables wich we additionally had to lift with our knees according to the meter. Besides we had to stand up, stamp with our feet and say "Enjoy your meal!" :).

However, the piece had an awfully difficult rhythm: Nearly all time signatures beginning with 3/4 meter, 4/4 meter, 5/4, 6/4 up to 7/4 and 9/4 meter were included. We were quite jittery while playing, but we managed to perform it with almost no mistakes.

"African Winds" with Mona/Xylophone (left), Lisa and Thomas/Marimba (middle) and Christoph/Drum (right)

Our second work was "African Winds". As its name implies it is african-tinted and includes a calm and a livelier part (regulation). Thomas and Lisa played on the Marimba (an instrument with wooden claves from the Xylophone family). I played on the Xylophone and Christoph made the rhythm on his big drum. The regulation also demanded an improvisational part - each of us had to play offhand and without notes.

For Lisa and me this piece of music was a special challenge as it was the first time that we had to play something of this difficulty degree on clave instruments. Until then we were only busy with various kinds of drums and rhythms. Now we also had to consider tone pitches, because Marimba and Xylophone claves are arranged like piano keyboards. But we learned it quite fast and had lots of fun. J

Note: The pictures were taken at the final rehearsal at our Music School, since taking pictures and video taping was strongly prohibited during the contest.

For our performance at "Prima La Musica" Music Competition we got extra awarded by our Orth/Donau Music School, namely with a

Music School OSCAR!

Playing in front of a jury was anyway very exciting and brought us a good adrenaline-thrill. After we had finished our performance we had to wait about two hours for the presentation of prizes. We used that period to watch some other percussion-ensembles. Some of them definitely were better than we, especially the older students. At the presentation of prizes all students, teachers and parents sat down in a big room and the jury called each ensemble to pick up their certificates. Of course we sat there very nervously and waited till the jurors called the "4 head chef drummers". Finally they announced that we had achieved a GOOD SUCCESS with 2nd prize.

Although the jurors affirmed that already the participation in this contest would be a distinction (at least there are about 50,000 music students in Lower Austria) we didn't know if we should be happy with our result, since a "good success" only was "good" and not "very good" or "excellent". Nevertheless we proudly accepted our certificates with a bright grin on our faces and decided to just make it better next time. Next year they do the contest for solists, but in two years we will play as an ensemble again.

Perhaps we manage to cream off something better with Michael's help. At this point we want to thank our teacher Michael Draskovits. He took his time and patience to take part in Austria's most difficult musical competition with us guys and to study two very challenging pieces!

- THANK YOU, Michael!!!

So, perhaps you can read another story about "Prima La Musica" in two years.

Bye-Bye,

Mona & Lisa

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