Melbourne Music Bank Winner: Heloise
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Melbourne Music Bank Winner: Heloise

Break the Bank Web‘Follow your passions! Never give up on your dreams! Do what you love!’ Sound familiar to you? Well, these are all things an aspiring musician might hear, particularly in their early days. Problem is, it’s become harder now, more than ever, to break into the music scene. With new kinds of production, fancy studios, promotional stunts and lots of things that cost lots money, the expectations of musicians are higher than ever. Without a magical limitless supply of money, you might be able to imagine how daunting and terrifying following this particular kind of dream might be.
A big problem for new artists is that a large majority of the population can get lazy with music, and unless you’re dedicated to finding out new artists, it can be very hard to get people to notice you. It’s become less of a standard to support local music, with events like summer festivals becoming more inclined over the last few decades to bring all the big international artists to our shores.
It seems like already established artists are really hogging the spotlight. However, the Bank of Melbourne saw the average up-and-coming musician’s struggle and raised them a competition. This year, the Bank of Melbourne held a contest called the Melbourne Music Bank. Musicians from all over Victoria were invited to write a song, inspired by Melbourne, and submit it into the competition.
The winning artist was promised an amazing prize, consisting of two days recording at Sing Sing Studios, a music clip by film maker Wilk, performance opportunities with Bank of Melbourne partners, album artwork design, 500 CDs, marketing and publicity advice from On the Map PR and the icing on the cake, your song featured in a Bank of Melbourne advert campaign.
Heloise
The four most popular artists performed at the Melbourne Recital Theatre in front of judges on October 29. After seeing their performances, they decided which one of the four artists had the winning song, announcing it the same day. The winning artist was a young woman who goes by the stage name Heloise, her real name being Eloise Thetford.
Originally from Tasmania, Eloise decided that at nine years of age she was going to be a musician. “I was performing on stage as a nine-year-old, and at around 14, 15 and 16 I was writing my own stuff and composing original music. I just knew that was where my heart was.” In May of 2013 Heloise released a self-funded EP and has since been entering competitions and doing little projects, working hard so that one day her work might pay off, and hasn’t it just.
Whilst having a bit of a chat, in between squealing and very high pitched excited talking, Eloise revealed to me what she’s planning on doing with the studio time she won. “I’m really looking forward to the studio time. I’m really hoping to be able to smash out a couple of tracks and maybe think about putting together another EP.”
Through winning the Melbourne Music Bank competition, Eloise has been given an opportunity that not many new, or even established, artists are ever given. That is; a support system and a starting point, achance to have her song on television every day statewide, and an opportunity to boost her career as a musician.
It’s so easy to fall in love with Eloise as a person, as well as a musician, as it’s so clear that she is full of life and laughter. “It’ll be nice to kind of have some gigs organised for me,” she laughs when I ask her about what part of the prize she’s most excited about. “I’m such a scatter brain, I can’t even do that.”
As an up-and-coming artist, Eloise knows better than most the value of supporting local acts, and how valuable it is to an artist when they receive that kind of verification of their work. “I think it’s really important that you’re supporting local musicians, especially because the music industry now is such a hard place,” she tells me. “There’s so much talent coming out of Melbourne too, even just Australia nation wide, there’s just such an abundance of incredible artists. Supporting them is the only way they’re going to be able to get their foot in the door.”
By Jessica Alves