Now in its sixth year, the CSO Internship Programme, supported by Alison Barwick, offers young orchestral musicians the opportunity to gain experience in a professional orchestral environment, be mentored by principal players, and create networks with professional musicians.

It was a series of coincidences in 2016, including a chance meeting with an elderly lady who needed someone to help her sell her instruments, that led retired educator Alison Barwick to the CSO.

Alison had been volunteering with Meals on Wheels after her retirement from teaching at Rangi Ruru Girls' School when Meals on Wheels brought her to the front door of Mrs Barbara Slater.

“We got talking and she found out I was interested in music. She showed me her and her late husband’s instruments, which included a violin and viola, and her own three-quarter violin.”

Mrs Slater wanted to sell her instruments and Alison volunteered to help her without knowing how. Someone suggested she should get in touch with the CSO, and that was how she met First Violinist and then Head of Community Engagement, Cathy Irons.

“Cathy and I got chatting and she mentioned that she’d been an intern [with an orchestra] in South Africa.

“I said, ‘Why can’t the CSO have interns?’.”

It so happened that Alison was having her will devised at the time and her lawyer was keen for her to leave a bequest. “Then I thought, why don’t I fund the internship programme? Then I thought [that] it wouldn’t be very fun to have it start after I was gone, so it’s started now while I can still enjoy it.”

The internship programme united her two great interests; classical music, and the education of young people.

2022 intern Juliet Park said it meant a lot to her to be a CSO intern. “While [I’m] a little nervous, I’m looking forward to both rehearsing and performing in a musical setting that’s far beyond what I’ve experienced in school orchestras.” She had been coming to the CSO since she was little, and was a part of the CSO ambassador programme through her school, Rangi Ruru.

Alison hope that the interns "will get what they would like and hope to get out of the programme". She also hopes "they’ll learn heaps of stuff they didn’t know they were going to learn".

The internship programme has had quite an influence on previous participants. A couple of years ago, Alison received a letter from Isabella Gregory, who was one of the first interns. “She and the other intern of her year both wanted to go to medical school, but that year with the orchestra changed [her] life. She’d just had that chance and realised she absolutely loved being in the orchestra.”

Isabella headed instead to the New Zealand School of Music and was recently awarded the Giese Flute Grant.

The 2022 CSO interns are Juliet Park (left), and Ella Chen (right). Pictured here with Alison Barwick (centre).