Ed adjudicating at the 2025 Sunshine Coast Eisteddfod

On the 4th and 5th of August, I had the pleasure of adjudicating the 2025 Sunshine Coast Junior Eisteddfod for the following sections: Secondary Concert Band B, Primary Large Concert Band, Primary Small Concert Band, and Secondary Concert Band A.

It was wonderful to hear so many young musicians and their directors performing a wide selection of excellent music, including a few of my own compositions. Overall, the standard was very high and a credit to the musical directors and their dedicated students.

During the Primary Concert Band sections, the conductor's scores were provided to me on a laptop. While this may initially seem like a convenient solution, I would strongly advise Eisteddfod and competition organizers to reconsider this approach. In practice, digital scores present several challenges: it is difficult to view an entire page at once, which makes it harder to assess how parts relate and interplay across the ensemble. Additionally, navigating between pages or sections can be cumbersome and time-consuming.

Fortunately, for the Secondary sections, I was provided with hard copies of the conductor scores, which made the adjudication process much smoother and more effective.