What do internationally renowned musicians as diverse as a composer of operas and Hollywood film scores; a classical violinist; two rock bands; a sound engineer; broadcaster; an organist and conductor have in common? They all went to Brisbane Grammar School.
Arthur Benjamin (BGS 1908) was described in his school report as "bright and intelligent with great natural musical ability". Starting in 1911 he went to London to study at the Royal College of Music. In 1918, serving as a gunner with the Royal Flying Corps, Benjamin was shot down by a young Hermann Göring and composed a sonata while a prisoner of war. He went on to a long international career as a concert pianist, conductor, composer and music professor at the Royal College of Music. Best known for Jamaican Rumba (1938), he was also a prolific composer of film scores, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much and Alexander Korda's An Ideal Husband.
Robert Forster '74 and Grant McLennan co-founded The Go-Betweens in 1977, an indie rock band that disbanded in 2006. The band's second album Before Hollywood (1983) reached Number 2 on the UK Independent Charts, and 16 Lovers Lane was featured on SBS TV's The Great Australian Albums. The Hale Street Link traffic bridge was renamed the Go Between Bridge in the band's honour, opening in 2010.
Powderfinger, another band comprising Old Boys, hit the airwaves in 1989. The original line-up included guitarists John Collins '87 and Ian Haug '88 with Steven Bishop '87 on drums and singer-songwriter Bernard Fanning. Powderfinger went on to win 18 ARIA awards, played the Danish royal rock concert in Copenhagen (2004) at the request of Crown Prince Frederik and Mary Donaldson, and was named a Q150 Icon of Queensland in 2009. Speaking at the 2013 Foundation Day ceremony, Collins said the BGS work ethic empowered what he did with Powderfinger.
Ben Tolliday '96, sound engineer, played cello in the School's string and symphony orchestras. After the Queensland Conservatorium he forged an international career in sound recording, working with Alanis Morissette and orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study film score recording in the USA and UK.
Ray Chen '04 is one of the most highly regarded violin soloists in the world today. In Year 8 he won the National Concerto Competition for String Players. Four years after leaving BGS he won the senior division first prize of the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition (Cardiff) and first prize in the 2009 Queen Elizabeth Music Competition (Brussels), and has played a Stradivarius loaned by the Nippon Music Foundation.
Howard Ainsworth AM '49, broadcaster and TV presenter, was the voice of classical music in Brisbane for some 50 years, a long career on ABC Radio before becoming broadcast manager of 4MBS Classic FM in 1993. His program Music Lover's Choice featured interviews with musicians including Yehudi Menuhin and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Christopher Wrench '76, organist, trained at the Queensland Conservatorium and the Vienna Conservatorium (where he was Director of Music at Christ Church Vienna), returning to Brisbane in 1991 as Lecturer in Organ at the Queensland Conservatorium. He is internationally acclaimed as a concert organist, recording artist and concerto soloist.
Simon Hewett '93, Captain of Music, furthered his studies at The University of Queensland, becoming the youngest ever finalist in the ABC Young Performers Award. Awarded a German Government scholarship to study conducting in Weimar, he debuted at the Sydney Opera House in 2003 before joining the Hamburg State Opera. He is now Principal Conductor of both the Stuttgart Opera and the Hamburg Ballet.
Source: Grammar News Winter 2019. Read the original edition