Media Release

Monday, 19 July 2004

Honours music student and pianist Michael Ierace has won the 2004 Geoffrey Parsons Award.

The annual award is one of the few Australian prizes to celebrate and encourage the profession of piano accompaniment.

Presented by the Accompanists' Guild of South Australia, in association with the Elder School of Music at the University of Adelaide, the award is named in memory of the Guild's founding international patron, the acclaimed accompanist Geoffrey Parsons.

Considered a rising young star, Michael Ierace of Kidman Park is studying for his Bachelor of Music (Honours) degree at the Elder School of Music.

For the final of the Geoffrey Parsons Award he performed a movement of the Mozart Kegelstatt Trio and three movements from the Brahms Sonata for piano and viola, Op 120, No. 1, joined by violist Leila Kelleher and clarinettist Rosanna Lovell.

He and the other finalists also performed the set work, Debussy's C'est L'extase from Ariettes Oubliées, following only one rehearsal with soprano Rosalind Martin.

The Guild's visiting international patron, Phillip Moll, joined jurors Diana Harris and Elizabeth Koch to judge the prize. In judging the competitors' performances, the jurors considered the choice of program the competitors chose, the difficulty of the pieces, their technical, ensemble and interpretative command, as well as their overall presentation.

For First Prize, Michael Ierace receives $1000, plus payment of a further $1000 when he completes his recital with professional musicians arranged by the Guild in 2005.

The Geoffrey Parsons Award will again be awarded in 2005. Entry forms and further information will be available in early 2005 from the Guild's founder and secretary, Diana Harris, who can be contacted on (08) 8431 6030 or by email.