Cousin Quartet
Cousin Quartet (L-R: Jamie Wallace, Hanna Wallace, Beatrice Colombis, Dylan Colombis). Image © Keith Saunders.

Cousins Strike a Chord

Take a bow: meet the winners of Musica Viva’s 2020 contest for secondary students

Music has always been part of everyday life for Beatrice Colombis and her younger brother Dylan.

Their Italian father and Australian mother are both pianists who met while studying at the Tchaikovsky Conservatorium of Music in Moscow, and their stepfather is a violinist.

Meanwhile, their cousins Hanna and Jamie Wallace (the children of their stepfather’s sister and husband) also grew up with musical parents who played violin and clarinet.

On top of that, Hanna and Jamie’s grandfather Yasuki Nakamura (Beatrice and Dylan’s step-grandfather) was one...