Chloe Chung received her BBM Youth Support Award for Music in late 2017, and travelled to Europe for a month on the 22 April 2018. She shared her journey with us as she explored and developed new styles of music performance and cross cultural music studies.

Chloe began her trip in London, England.. She shared this about her experiences in the capital city:

‘I was in and out of London quite frequently during my trip; there were many interesting discoveries that came out of the lessons, concert experiences, and conversations. I’ll try and touch on a few of these!

The concert experiences were rich and varied, and full of cheer; full audiences of all ages, much enthusiasm expressed by both hosts and the audience – London’s enduring passion for classical music was clearly evident. One of the first concerts I attended was at the Royal Albert Hall “movie music” concert, while I still had really terrible jet lag at the beginning of the trip. I vividly remember swivel seats and popcorn/ice cream/beer yielding audience members, standing ovations, much celebration and banter about the royal baby, live twitter reading of audience feedback via twitter and it was all very overwhelming for my senses that night – definitely a distinct “London” buzz. Most of the concert tickets (at student-price) cost 5-10 pounds – which was amazing! And made it very easy to get to a concert nearly every night.

The concert I remember most fondly was Mahler 9 conducted by Simon Rattle courtesy of Antonia Berg & Gareth Davies (principle flute of LSO), to whom I was so grateful for the tickets. Concerts like these don’t exactly happen overnight in Australia, so seeing Sir. Rattle conducting for the second time in the flesh felt surreal and LSO’s performance of the Symphony was full of impassioned energy.

While in London I stayed at a few places; alternating between a share-house with one of my close high school friends, Antonia Berg, also a flautist in South London; stayed a few nights at the accommodation near Charing Cross Hospital which is where my Aunt works and lives as a nurse, in the very central location of Hammersmith; and with my Uncle who lives near Wembley Park.’

To read more about her trip, visit Chloe’s profile here 

10th July, 2018