A STUDENT of the DIT's College of Music has become the first Irish student to win the prestigious ASLICO singing competition for concert and opera singers.

Soprano Orla Boylan was one of seven prize winners in the competition which was held in Milan recently and has previously only been open to Italian singers.

Boylan, who holds a first class honours science degree from UCD and is about to finish her diploma in music teaching, is a former winner of the Veronica Dunne bursary, worth £7,000. As her prize from ASLICO, she received two five month contracts with opera companies over the next two years.

"It's an unusual prize and a very good one," says Anne Marie O'Sullivan, head of vocal, opera and drama studies in the DIT College of Music in Adelaide Road. "There are not many like Orla and there never will be. She definitely, without a doubt has a career in opera. She's very, very special."