Melbourne composer Mike Fitzpatrick was awarded "The Harvey Phillips Award" for excellence in composition for his work entitled 'Utaki' for Euphonium, Violin, Cello and Piano which was written for Matthew van Emmerik and given the world premiere by Matthew at last years Melbourne International Festival of Brass.

The week was truly inspirational — I can’t wait for the next event which will be held in Tucson Arizona in 2010.Matthew van Emmerik, Australian Besson Euphonium Artist.

Matthew, who was in Ohio for the conference told 4BRDU, "I was asked by the organising committee of ITEC if I would be able to attend the Awards ceremony and specifically the ‘Tuba or Euphonium featured in Chamber music category’ just in case Mike’s piece won."

Surprise and Honour

"It was a great surprise and honour receiving the award from Harvey Phillips, who on the same day became the first ever wind player inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame — an amazing achievement."

"Mike’s piece was up against some stiff competition in the final including a composition by Jim Self, tuba player on many film scores including the famous Close Encounters of The Third Kind movie, and a young and exciting composer — Sunao Isaji from Japan."

Matthew performs

The first Australian Euphonium Artist to be invited to the conference, Matthew was one of the soloists in the opening concert with the Cincinnati Brass Band where he performed alongside Sergio Carolino, Jim Gourlay, Katrina Marzella and David Childs.

Matthew gave the world premiere of Mike Fitzpatrick’s work Folk Dances which was composed especially for this event, and Helen Johnston's beautiful melody Leonie, which was arranged by Joe Cook.

Also during the week was another recital with other guest artists Alessandro Fossi, on tuba from Italy and Danny Helseth on euphonium from the USA. For this programme Matthew performed Helen Johnston’s Anna Karenina and a violin transcription called Sonatensatz by Brahms.

Conference Theme

The theme of the conference was Preserving the Past and Inspiring the Future and this was the perfect opportunity to showcase Australian music from his recently released CD ‘Neath Austral Skies' which an international audience had not heard before.

Inspirational

Matthew concluded, "The week was truly inspirational — I can’t wait for the next event which will be held in Tucson Arizona in 2010."