A music student to watch.

 
A music student to watch.

Lauren King is a Whitireia music student to watch. Her experiences range from choir to Rock bands, soundtracks to Shakespeare; she has her own band, Mama Tilly. Not bad for a girl from the Kapiti Coast!

King has just completed film scores for New Zealand Film Archives. She was recently interviewed along with Music Programme Manager and tutor, Dan Adams, by Radio New Zealand about her work composing these scores, which will travel the country.

“Lauren is career focused and grounded, and someone with the people skills to make us confident she will carve out a niche in the music scene here and overseas” says Adams.

King has recently applied for the APRA Professional Development Scholarship 2009 with a prize of $12,000 and is waiting for the winner to be announced.

She says Whitireia provided “the opportunity to explore music and go on an adventure with it. There are so many different paths you can take with music and Whitireia has really opened my mind up about it. I went into the course in 2006 as a guitarist who wanted to be in a band and travel the world and I've now come out on the other side as a musician with goals and dreams bigger then I ever imagined them to be.”

King picked up the guitar for the first time as a 14 year old. At age15 she started taking lessons from guitar ace Deiter Burmester, Kapiti Coast. Over the next 3 years Lauren sat and passed 2 guitar examinations, entered Rockquest with college band Flannel and competed in two lead guitar competitions. She came 3rd in one, winning an Ibanez electric guitar.

In 2005 King completed her Certificate in Rock, Jazz and Commercial Music at Whitireia Community Polytechnic in Porirua. She received a scholarship for being an all round high achieving student. During the year, Lauren accompanied the Kapiti Chamber Choir for a Shakespeare Production, worked as a musician extra for TVNZ series 'Karaoke High' and won yet another Ibanez guitar by coming 3rd in another lead guitar competition.

And behind it all, King has started her own guitar tutoring business, where she teaches students regularly on the Kapiti Coast. Next year King also plans to teach guitar in Wellington and Paraparaumu and do some fill in work at Mana college. “I think the cool thing about teaching is just the kick you get out of showing a student a song, chord or lick and watching them get a buzz out of it. It's so important for them to be enjoying it.”

Ends/

© Scoop Media