‘Life changing’: AYO alumni look back on their first National Music Camps

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For many Australian Youth Orchestra participants, their first program is also their first opportunity to play with a full orchestra. The mesmerising experience of sitting inside an orchestra for the first time has stuck with many alumni long after their time at AYO, even setting them on their career trajectories.

2026 Australian Youth Orchestra Concertmaster Lily Song’s first program – and her most memorable – was National Music Camp 2022. “It was my first time being in such a high standard orchestra and it was so motivating,” she said.

“It’s probably one of the reasons I turned to music in the first place. It was life changing.”

Lily Song

Left: Lily Song (centre) at AYO Symphonists 2022. Right: Lily Song as Flagship Orchestra Concertmaster, February 2026.

One AYO program in particular stood out for seasoned AYO cellist Francesca Masel. “It was one of my first programs at NMC 2018,” she said. “We played Shostakovich Chamber Symphony. That sticks out in my memory because it was just so energetic and dynamic and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.”

With more than a decade of experience playing with AYO, violinist Jessica Li looks back particularly fondly on her first National Music Camp in 2014. “I think the first one I ever did will always stand out because it’s the first time ever played in an actual orchestra,” she said. “We had Richard Gill conducting a Copeland Symphony and I could not play my part very well. It was very scary. I was 14. It was also amazing.”

MSO Principal Bassoon Jack Schiller attended his first National Music Camp in 2008 at the age of 16. “I got to play La Mer with Richard Gill conducting, which was extremely amazing,” he said. “It’s such an incredible feeling to be part of this new welcoming environment and getting to hear this massive orchestra play for the first time that I’d never really heard.”

Jack Schiller (fourth from left) at AYO National Music Camp 2008.

MSO First Violin Anne-Marie Johnson describes her experience at National Music Camp 2009 as “really intense and formative”. “It was the most incredible sound that I’ve ever been a part of,” she said. ”We played Carl Nielsen’s The Inextinguishable. Just a few weeks earlier, getting the part, I was so overwhelmed – it seemed like the hardest thing I’d ever played.”

“As it came together, in that moment, it crystallized my wish that I wanted to become an orchestral musician.”

Anne-Marie Johnson

AYO alumna and MSO Principal Flute Prudence Davis attended her first National Music Camp in 1978. Nearly 50 years later, she vividly remembers her first performance of Stravinsky’s Firebird and Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony. “I had never experienced anything like it, just a depth of expression and absolute desperation,” she said. “It was an incredible experience.”

Flute section, Australian Youth Orchestra 1980, Adelaide Festival of the Arts.

For 2026 Bishop Orchestra Concertmaster Siobhan Makinson, her first AYO first program – National Music Camp 2025 – was also a turning point in her musical career. “My first AYO program kind of came at a pretty unsure time of my life where I wasn’t sure whether music was going to be a part of my career,” Siobhan said.

“I remember sitting in the orchestra and being like, yeah, this is it.”

Siobhan Makinson

2026 Flagship Orchestra Concertmaster Lily Song echoed this sentiment. “When I first started AYO when I was 14, I was still very unsure whether I wanted to do music,” Lily said. “But honestly, since my first camp, it was kind of like as soon as I was sitting there, I knew this is what I wanted to do. It really set up my whole future.”

Could 2027 be your first AYO program?

19-year-old oboist Lisa Zhang participated in her first AYO program this January, at the 78th annual National Music Camp. “I would highly recommend it to anyone,” she said. “It’s so lovely meeting everyone from so many different places and getting to play music together.” Lisa invites future applicants to give it a go.

“There’s nothing bad about trying to apply, so you should just go for it.”

In 2027, the Australian Youth Orchestra invites a new generation of emerging young musicians and arts administrators to shape their future in the music industry.

About National Music Camp

Launching each AYO calendar year, National Music Camp (NMC) is an immersive two-week residential camp featuring an orchestral program and a number of complementary non-orchestral programs. The camp includes two symphony orchestras, a chamber orchestra, chamber music, professional development, wellbeing seminars, media training, social and networking events. Camp-goers are mentored by Australia’s leading orchestral musicians and arts-workers, and the culmination of the camp is a series of highly anticipated public concerts over the course of the two weeks. The concerts showcase the best of Australia’s next-generation classical musicians to local audiences and beyond, as the concerts are broadcast internationally.

While participants are honing their musical talents, National Music Camp provides the opportunity for musicians to develop lifelong bonds with like-minded people. Many participants recall their time at NMC as incredibly important for fostering their love of music as well as their skills.