Cellist Benett Tsai has won the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra’s NSW Secondary Schools Concerto Competition. The year eight student – who became the youngest ever winner of the Fine Music Network Young Virtuoso Award last year – took out both the overall prize as well as the KPO Players Award with his performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. The judges for this year’s competition were violinist Aiko Goto and pianist Bernadette Harvey.

“Receiving both the Overall Prize and the Players Award was an honour, which was already a bonus to an invaluable experience collaborating with the KPO under Maestro Paul Terracini,” Tsai told Limelight. “Rehearsing with the orchestra provided me valuable lessons and I was delighted that the orchestra and I played our best in the concert. The incredible acoustic of the Concourse Concert Hall and the very receptive audience made the experience even more special.”

Pianist Leanne Jin took out the Barbara Robinson Award – the senior section – with her performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 1, while violinist Alicia Poon won the Barbara Cran Award – the junior section, which Tsai won in 2016 – for her performance of the Khachaturian Cello Concerto. Sarah Chang and Jared Cheung...