'Bought a house online': Musician having a blast after big move

Mr Young will perform a solo concerto as part of the Warrnambool Symphony Orchestra's Mother's Day concert on Sunday, May 12, 2024.

He moved to Port Fairy - a place he often holidayed - three years ago, and said he was as busy as ever performing.

"Excuse the trumpet pun but I'm having a blast," Mr Young said.

"During COVID, day 251 I went internet shopping and bought a house online in Port Fairy because I'd had enough.

"We just got tired of it. We thought, 'what's holding us here? Nothing'."

"My friends said to me when I was coming down here: 'What are you going to do with your music? There'll be no where to play'."

But he said he was now out playing six or seven nights a week.

Mr Young plays in a number of different bands across the region, as well as for the recent south-west musical productions - from Cats, to Wizard of Oz - and is about to start rehearsals for Mary Poppins.

"I've never been busier. And the standard is really high. There's some great musicians," he said.

Mr Young has been playing the trumpet for 50 years. He said he took up the instrument when he was 13 because his mum wanted him to play the violin. "I just didn't want to get beat up at school," he said with a laugh.

Mr Young studied trumpet at the Victorian College of the Arts and went on to play in brass bands and freelance before going back to study commerce.

He said he tried to retire when he moved to Port Fairy but ended up working from his new home for a Melbourne-based big building materials company in his job as a marketing analyst. "My commute is about 10 steps from the kitchen bench to the office," he said.

While Mr Young is one of the orchestra's newest members, well-known Warrnambool paediatrician Dr Nick Thies has been there since it was founded in 1986.

After taking up the violin when he was eight, he gave up when he was 14. "It wasn't cool to carry a violin going to school," Dr Thies said.

When he noticed an ad in the paper about 25 years later seeking musicians to form a Warrnambool orchestra, Dr Thies decided it was time to pick up the instrument again.

"There was only about half-a-dozen people in the orchestra back then," he said. Now there are about 35.

Dr Thies said many were medical students who came to study at Warrnambool. "A lot of medical students seem to be doing music as well as another string to their bow," he said.

Dr Ties - who is now in his mid-70s - is still working part-time and said he had no plans to fully retire. "I can still see myself working another five years," he said.

He said the Mother's Day concert had become an institution. It will be held at St Joseph's Church from 2.30pm on Sunday.

The program will feature the music of Mozart, Mussorgsky, Strauss, Rodriguez, Vaughan Williams, Leroy Anderson, Handel, Hummel, Sartori, Dvorak, Lully and Weinberger as well as new works by Melbourne composer David Cundy.