Te Kura o Tititea Mt Aspiring College (MAC) performers shared some exceptional original music at the Central Otago Smokefree Rockquest regional final on Friday (June 16).

Smokefree Rockquest is an annual music competition for intermediate and high school bands throughout New Zealand.

MAC head of music Mat Doyle said the local students had a great night, with MAC band Spoken (Matilda Metcalfe, Richard Denyer, Oscar Goodwin) winning first place and Salty Vision (Max Byrne, Rowan Rosie, Tay Simpson, Tawa Wolfe) winning third place.

MAC’s Domenico Robinson (Parabola) won the Musicianship award.

“All of our acts represented the college incredibly well and shared some exceptional original music,” Mat said.

‘Spoken’ will now produce a 15-minute live music video showing a variety of their songs. 

The top two placeholders from each region will do the same, with the top 30 selected to go through to the next round. 

Last year ‘Spoken’ made it into the top 20 bands in New Zealand, and MAC wished them luck for this year’s competition.

“Congratulations to all the students who performed and our students who won awards - we are all so proud of you,” Mat added.

Other MAC bands performing were Day Glow (Portia Randall, Brooke Hutchison, Bianca James, Vanessa Vickers, Miki Bercelli), Feed The System (Toby Mills, Tommy Cotter, Archie Bruce), Parabola (Domenico Robinson, Abby Jago, Jayden Robertson), Superficial (Zara Weatherly, Axel Macdougall, Harrison Eastwood, Cormack Lee Smith), Mocka (Molly Wilson, Clarke West, Otis Murphy, Henry McConnell), and Izzy and the Anchors (Izzy Foskett, Chloe Murray, Lola Ritchie, Luke Gendall, Eliza Rowley). 

MAC’s Paige Gawn and Ruby Smith performed in the solo/duo category.