Hamilton musician and first-year Waikato University music student Paul Newton-Jackson has been awarded the Girdlers’ Scholarship to complete his undergraduate studies in musical composition at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University.
The four-year scholarship, valued at £25,000 ($NZ48,000) a year, covers the cost of tuition, living expenses and flights home to New Zealand.
The 2013 St Paul’s Collegiate (Hamilton) Dux, Newton-Jackson plays the piano, pipe organ, electric guitar, bass guitar and percussion. However, his first love is composition.
Newton-Jackson said the opportunity to study Music Composition at the renowned British university would be a lifechanging experience and he hoped the connections he would make would enable him to bring the music of young New Zealand composers to international audiences.
The music course offered at Cambridge, which includes weekly composers’ workshops, would be intensive yet rewarding.
‘‘Cambridge was the first university in the world to offer a dedicated music qualification, so it’s the ultimate university for an academic musician,’’ he said.
The Girdlers Scholarship is presented annually and to only one New Zealand student who demonstrates strong academic success and regular participation in extracurricular and communityrelated activities.
Newton-Jackson is the 50th Girdlers’ Scholarship recipient.
Former St Paul’s student Caleb Ward gained the Cambridge scholarship in 1999. He is now chief resident paediatrics at the John’s Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore in the United States.
St Paul’s headmaster Grant Lander said that Newton-Jackson was a remarkable, multitalented young person who characterises a hardworking and contributing member of society: ‘‘Paul excels in all aspects of life. He achieved great academic success in all of his subjects, is a musical genius scholarship and impressively shows a willingness to give something regularly back to his community through volunteer work.’’
Newton-Jackson is also a Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship winner at Waikato University, studying a conjoint degree in electrical engineering and music.
The Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship covers the full cost of tuition of an undergraduate degree and provides financial support for halls of residence.
The Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship covers the full cost of tuition of an undergraduate degree and provides financial support for halls of residence.
Among NewtonJackson’s achievements is gaining top student in New Zealand for year 13-level Cambridge Music exam as a year 11 student.
Newton-Jackson will head to Cambridge University in October this year.
The scholarship was presented to NewtonJackson at a function held at the Wellington Club hosted by Deputy Prime Minister Bill English.
The Girdler’s Scholarship is funded by the Girdlers’ company in Britain, a craftsman’s guild founded in medieval times.
