Bulli High School students Alara and Penny both debuted with Wollongong record label Silhouette after participating in the school’s innovative mentorship program. Photo: Region.
An extracurricular music mentoring program at a Wollongong school has led two students to debut with local record company Silhouette.
Bulli High School Year 9 student Penny Church and Year 10 student Alara Livingstone were two of 19 students who last year accepted the school’s music mentoring challenge, attending five weekly classes with established Illawarra musicians including Zoltan Budai (Mental as Anything), Russell Webster (Shining Bird), Jeb Taylor (Farmer and the Owl) and Grammy-nominated artist Ciaran Gribbin.
The goal was to conceptualise, write and then professionally record a pop song about the Illawarra at the end of the program.
Penny impressed the label with her 2023 recording Goodbye My Love, a song about Bulli’s notorious coal mining disaster.
“It’s about a woman whose loved one – her husband or son – has died in the coal mining incident, but she doesn’t know it yet, so she’s waiting for him to come home,” Penny says.
Penny, who says she “was very shy” prior to the program, hopes to use her new-found confidence, skills and connections to record more songs to go on Spotify.
It’s a goal shared by her fellow mentee Alara Livingstone, who made her debut earlier this year following her recording Because of You – a song sung from the perspective of a person whose friend or significant other has left the Illawarra.
The self-taught guitarist and singer-songwriter says the mentorship program left them with much more than a debut song, but also the confidence to put themselves out there, live performance experience and invaluable contacts.
It’s common feedback according to Bulli High teacher David Strange.
“The purpose of the mentoring program is to talent spot Bulli High youth who love music and have the talent and drive to succeed, but don’t necessarily have the industry connections to be noticed,” he says.
“We’ve found the kids who excel are often shy in class, but if they have an artistic passion and are driven, they work hard and are easily coached by the mentors. We’ve found some really good poetry in amongst these lyrics.”
The music mentorship is part of the school’s broader Multiverse Challenge which has just kicked off at Bulli High School for another year, with local Triple J aligned band Zion, made up of students from Bulli High, taking part.
The Multiverse Challenge asks kids to identify their dream career – whether it be in STEM, the arts or another area – and guides them to work hard and form valuable relationships.
Bulli High teachers tap into their own networks to source relevant industry connections and help “push kids into the real world”.
The challenge has been adopted at other local schools, with plans to make it a statewide competition next term.
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