By Helen Musa

Three of Canberra’s best and brightest young musicians are heading to Melbourne later this month after becoming the only ACT ensemble selected for the championship finals of Musica Viva Australia’s 2026 Strike A Chord competition.

The Kingsland Piano Trio, made up of Covenant Christian School students Evie Kurzawa, 13, violin, and Sylvia Kurzawa, 11, cello, together with Canberra Grammar School pianist Ryan Xi, 14, is one of just 12 finalists chosen from 170 chamber groups that entered this year’s national competition.

Established in 2020, Strike A Chord has grown into Australia’s premier chamber music competition for school-aged musicians. This year’s finalists come from Queensland, SA, WA, Victoria, NSW and the ACT, with Victorian ensembles dominating the field.

Named after legendary Canberra arts patron Sir Richard Kingsland, founding council chairman of the Canberra School of Music and a long time champion of the arts in the national capital, the trio has been playing together for about 18 months. All three first met through the Canberra Symphony Youth Chamber Orchestra.

According to Canberra Symphony Orchestra community and education manager Donna Parkes and renowned cellist, Lindy Reksten, reaching the finals is an achievement in itself.

“Strike A Chord is exceedingly competitive,” Parkes says. “There was a real sense of pride around the Canberra Symphony and the School of Music that the Kingsland Trio had made it.”

When I catch up with the trio in a practice room at the ANU School of Music on a freezing Canberra afternoon, they quickly warm the room with the opening movement of Beethoven’s Piano Trio Op. 1.

Their lively eye contact and instinctive communication reveal the close musical connection that chamber music demands, and which seems remarkable in performers so young.

The two Kurzawa sisters are part of a deeply musical family. Their mother is a violinist, another sibling plays viola, and together they are not far off forming a family orchestra. 

Evie, who enjoys sport, hiking and camping when she’s not practising, studies with violin teacher Sylvie Lundy, while primary school student Sylvia studies cello with Rachel Johnston and balances music with a love of art and creative writing.

Evie is so committed to her violin studies that she flies to Melbourne once a month for lessons with Latvian-born concert violinist Sophia Kirsanova.

Ryan Xi, already racing through Year 9 at Canberra Grammar School, is equally versatile. Besides piano, he also plays cello and organ, is a secret Rubik’s Cube enthusiast and admits to a passion for rollercoasters, a revelation that prompts alarm from his teachers. But piano study, first with Wendy Lorenz and now with Stephanie Neeman, remains his main focus.

Parkes believes the competition offers young musicians much more than the chance to win a prize.

“It gives music students an extension, and it works. They get so excited about what they’re doing, and they’re as good as the best in the country,” she says.

Reksten says it will be a whirlwind weekend. The trio will fly to Melbourne on Friday, August 28, familiarise themselves with Melbourne Recital Centre, compete in the championship finals on Saturday, August 29, and return home on Sunday.

“And,” she adds impromptu, “maybe there’ll even be time for some ice cream before they fly back.”

The Strike A Chord championship finals will be held at Melbourne Recital Centre on August 29 and will be livestreamed at musicaviva.com.au/strike-a-chord/

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.