Madison Pino – Can’t Stop the Music
There is a moment Madison Pino (Class of 2024) describes from her final year at Santa Maria College that says everything about what the performing arts do to a person.
She is standing on stage for the last time as Music Captain. Not during a performance. Somewhere in the middle of all the preparation, music camp logistics, the Year 12 Choral Medley coming together bar by bar and the particular nerves that come with leading something you love in front of people you love.
She had not been asked to organise any of it. She just saw what needed doing. And she did it.
That instinct, to lean in, to serve, to make the thing as good as it can possibly be, is exactly what Santa Maria’s performing arts community has always produced. And this July, when the doors of the new Cultural Centre open, that community will have a home worthy of everything it has always been.
It all Started with Hot Cross Buns
Madison will be the first to tell you her musical origin story is not glamorous.
“As soon as I started, something just clicked,” she says, “and all I wanted to do was practise hot-cross-buns over and over again, to the dismay of the rest of my family.”
From that first lesson, music became the thing she turned to every single day. Not just for the joy of it, but for everything it held. A way to process emotion. A way to connect. A way to feel grounded when the seriousness of life threatened to crowd out everything else.
By the time she arrived at Santa Maria College, music was not a subject she attended. It was who she was.
A Department that Felt Like Home
The Music Department at Santa is, by every account from the students who pass through it, one of the most genuinely welcoming spaces in the school.
Madison felt that from the beginning.
“No matter what I had going on,” she says, “there was always someone there to listen, whether that be an older girl during my earlier years, a peer, or a teacher. It was a space where we could be completely ourselves.”
That culture did not happen by accident. It was built, deliberately and over many years, by teachers like Mr Kinsella and Mrs Maclean-Black, who Madison credits as central to her formation, not just as a musician, but as a person. It was modelled by the Music Captains who came before her, whose leadership she watched carefully and quietly tried to carry forward.
And it was held together by the girls themselves, who had built something rare: a community where putting yourself out there felt safe, because the audience on the other side was already cheering for you.
“There was a strong culture of encouragement for the arts at Santa,” Madison says, “and I think that made everyone feel more confident to put themselves out there.”
The Memories That Have Stayed
Ask Madison about her highlights and she will mention RYSO, Showcase, and Graduation without hesitation. But the memories that have genuinely stayed with her are quieter than that.
It is the assembly performances, when her year group would linger in the hall instead of rushing off, staying to hear the whole song, because they wanted to. It is the rehearsals before music camp that turned into something more than preparation. It is the feeling of performing with her friends, for her friends, and knowing that everyone in the room was hoping they would succeed.
“I loved the sense of connection that came with sharing music,” she says, “both between the performers on stage and with the people listening.”
A New Home for Performing Arts
This July, Santa Maria College opens the doors of its new Cultural Centre, a purpose-built space designed for the performing arts community that students like Madison have always belonged to.
For Madison, the timing feels significant. She graduated in 2024 knowing what this community had given her. The new Cultural Centre is the school’s answer to that gift, a physical declaration that the arts are not an add-on to a Santa Maria education. They are foundational to it.
The girls who will stand on that stage for the first time this year will have something Madison’s cohort helped build, even if they never played a note in the space.
What She Carries Now
Madison still sees her piano and singing teachers fortnightly. She still performs whenever she can. She finds ways to stay connected to the music community even as adulthood makes increasing demands on her time.
She is not unusual in this. Ask any Santa Maria graduate who was touched by the performing arts, and you will hear a version of the same story. The music does not stop when school does. It changes shape, but it stays.
“Something I love about music is how flexible it is,” Madison says. “No matter what stage of life you’re in, there’s always a way to keep it with you.”
The lessons she carries are not just musical ones. She learnt how to listen — really listen — to the people and stories around her. She learnt that collaboration requires patience and empathy and trust. She learnt that resilience is not something you are born with; it is something you practise, like scales, until it becomes instinct.
And she learnt that putting yourself out there, even when it feels daunting, is always worth it.
Today, Madison is in her second year of a Pharmacy degree at UWA. She sang the National Anthem for the Perth Wildcats this year. She performs at events around the city. She still sees her piano and singing teachers fortnightly.
She is not winding down. She is just getting started.
In the lead-up to the opening of our new Cultural Centre this July, Madison sat down to reflect on what the music department gave her. Watch her story here: Santa Maria College Cultural Centre
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Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.
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