WITH all the bad press of recent weeks, it’s encouraging to see a good news story come out of the School of Music in Liam Budge.

Liam, a vocalist in his final year at the school, recently won the prestigious vocal scholarship at the annual Generations in Jazz festival held outside Mount Gambier, in the south-east of SA.

The national competition for jazz vocalists under 21 years old, was screened by James Morrison and Emma Pask, who listened to every application.

The prize included $5000; and for Liam, the cash will go towards his debut jazz album that will be recorded at Sing Sing Recording Studios in Melbourne.

“I was really lucky. I got an artsACT grant for part of the funding for that album and this is going to cover the other part,” he said.

Liam, who also plays guitar, piano and cello, says he’s not from the “Michael Bublé mould” and describes his style as “contemporary jazz”.

“It draws on influences from stuff that’s not really very jazz; a lot of hip hop, some rock,” he said.

Liam first took up early learning music classes as a toddler.

However, it wasn’t until he was in high school that he really got a taste for musical performance.

“The main musical education I had was when I went to Oxford,” he said.

“I was at Magdalen College School which is a big chorister school, kind of really archaic and 100 years old.

“There was a music program there and I started playing cello. That’s where I got into singing.

“There was ‘Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat’ and I got Joseph and that was my first ever real singing gig.”

But it was in his gap year in England that he decided he really wanted to pursue a career in music.

“My parents wanted me to do law, and I was going to do law, but then I did this jazz class in Italy which was my first exposure to jazz as well and that was what hit it off for me,” he said.

Now as a School of Music student and part-time singing teacher, Liam plays regular gigs as part of his jazz band The Liam Budge Quartet and his pop folk band Sidney Creswick.

He hopes to travel to New York next year, sometime after taking part in the the Australian Talented Youth Project and the 2013 Generations in Jazz.

But back home in Canberra, as tensions at the School of Music take their toll, Liam says he wants to support his amazing teachers including his idol, jazz teacher Vince Jones.

“If it does happen, the Canberra music scene will disintegrate pretty rapidly,” he said.

Photo by Silas Brown