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Rising opera star Olivia Pike has waited several years to win the Christchurch Vocal Competition, but finally took out the top spot over the Matariki weekend.Pike, who was third in 2019, second in 2021 and 2022 and third in 2023 (the event was cancelled in 2020), returned to New Zealand from Boston, where she is in the middle of a two-year graduate performance diploma at the Boston Conservatorium of Art.

For 116 years, the Christchurch Vocal Competition has been attracting talent from across the country and internationally. This year, the Christchurch Competitions Vocal Section convener, Sally Binnie, says she expects an excellent turn out in late June. “We have emailed 150 invitations to singers and their teachers, and with travel unhindered for a couple of years now, together with the growing popularity of vocal performance, we are hoping for a record attendance,” she says. Senior and junior applicants have until Saturday 24 May to apply.