Kyla Matsuura-Miller has won the 2021 Freedman Classical Fellowship.

The 28-year old violinist from Melbourne took pride of place in last night’s finals in which she competed against Molly Collier-O’Boyle (viola) and Eliza Shephard (flute) from Victoria, and Will Hansen (double bass) from New South Wales, taking home the Music Trust’s coveted $21,000 Fellowship. The concert was filmed in Sydney and Melbourne, and livestreamed by the Australian Digital Concert Hall.

Kyla Matsuura-Miller

Kyla Matsuura-Miller, winner of the 2021 Freedman Classical Fellowship. Photo © Suzie Blake

Matsuura-Miller will use the prize money on a project that will explore what it is like for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) to be raised in Australia.

“My project aims to express and evoke elements of the collective cultural memory of being raised non-white in Australia,” she said. “The project is an opportunity to create something from a place of mutual compassion and shared experiences.”

She will work with filmmaker Tobias Willis, composer Stéphanie Kabanyana Kandekwe and two other composers yet to be selected, who will be invited to draw on their personal experiences as non-white Australians to create newly commissioned works for solo violin and optional...