Australian soprano Emma Matthews shares her experiences adjudicating at the prestigious competition for young singers.

I’ve just come back from a week and a bit of adjudicating, where I travelled around Australia and went to Wellington to hear some amazing voices. It was absolutely fascinating and I loved it – even more than singing, dare I say?

Hearing and meeting the young singers and hearing different interpretations of the same song, even, was really quite fascinating. I actually came home and went and did about four hours of practice and thought of all the things I’d heard other singers doing wrong, and tried to hone in my own technique a little bit more as well. So I’ve learned a great deal from these young singers – it’s been absolutely amazing. Also being able to observe the the rawness of some talents and the detail and refinements that other singers have already accomplished just excited me so much. The differences in ages as well; we had a fabulous young 18-year-old perform which had myself, Michael Lewis and Andrew Dalton in tears – just the most beautiful beginnings of an instrument.

There were also fabulous young tenors from...