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So here we are, the end of National Music Camp. And what an adventure it has been. To think that just two weeks ago today we arrived in our new artistic home of Canberra is a little daunting, particularly when you consider everything we have achieved and witnessed in such little time. Each event or new skill we have grasped has seemed to whiz past; I especially noticed it after the first week when I devastatingly realised that we only had one week of camp to go.

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In Llewellyn Hall a group of musicians gather on the stage and prepare to play. What are they playing? New music. And when I say 'New', I mean it. These musicians aren't about to play Boulez, nor are they about to play Ives, or Glass, or even Gyger - such music is already old and familiar. I know what Adams' Scheherazade.2, written only last year, sounds like. Here in Llewellyn Hall no one knows what the music about to be played will sound like - no one knows exactly what to expect. What these musicians are about to play is completely new - music that has never before been played, or heard, by anyone. In short, music that does not yet exist. The downbeat is given and the rehearsal begins.

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It is difficult to process the fact that it has already been over a week since we first arrived in Canberra for the 2016 National Music Camp. It is difficult to find words that encapsulate such a week that feels at once so short and yet simultaneously so long. So much has happened in our first week that it has become easy to forget which day it is, easy to become oblivious to the passing of time as we all advance inexorably towards our respective deadlines.

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