15-year-old multi-instrumentalist wins top state music award for the second time

Gold Coast Year 10 student, 15-year-old Elliena Escott, has been awarded the top prize in Queensland Music Festival’s Score IT! competition’s junior category for the second time.

Part of Queensland Music Festival, the Score IT! competition has run for five years and offers Queensland secondary school students the chance to work on a film scoring project with other like-minded young composers as well as film and production experts.

She entered an original film score to a scene showing a monk in a forest, from a short film produced by Griffith Film School.

Escott is also crowdfunding with a goal of 12,000 to get her to the Boston Conservatory in Massachusetts for the Berklee High School Composition Intensive;  a two-week summer program kicking off in July next year.

The expert judging panned included Katie Noonan and award-winning composer Cameron Patrick, who has worked on music for Star Trek Into Darkness and Jurassic World.

Patrick told the Brisbane Times that “words like prodigy come to mind with the Score IT! students.

“These kids are mature beyond their years, enthusiastic, focused, love the craft of film composing and really want to get into it.

Elliena hopes to crowdfund $12,000 to be able to go to the Boston Conservatory in Massachusetts for the Berklee High School Composition Intensive two-week summer program in July next year.

The multi-instrumentalist has mastered 12 instruments, including the trumpet, piano, guitar, french horn, drums, violin, ukulele, cello, bass guitar, trombone, saxophone and vocals.

She has been a member of the Gold Coast Youth Orchestra since the age of 10, and plays in their Big Band and Youth Symphony, as well as being a member of the Brisbane Young Conservatorium Wind Orchestra for the past two years.

Winners will take part in composition workshops and masterclasses led by senior lecturers and practitioners from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, as well as a half-day workshop with top video and digital school, Queensland School of Film and TV.

Listen to her winning score for The Forest here.