Mousikos' cellist, Hannah Kim, of St Hilda's Collegiate School, and pianist Modi Deng and violinist Annabel Drummond, both of Columba College, had mixed emotions following the regional competition at the University of Otago in Dunedin at the weekend.
"We were really excited, but also relieved because we put lots of pressure on ourselves," Annabel said.
"We won last year and we believed we could do it again."
The trio performed the second and third movements of Martinu's Piano Trio No.3 in C major, which won acclaim from adjudicator and Royal New Zealand Air Force director of music Owen Clarke.
Annabel said they now had a nervous wait for two weeks while other regional competitions were held.
The adjudicators will then take the top performances from each region and decide which groups will contest the national final in Hamilton next month.
"We made it to the semis last year. This year, we hope to go one better," Annabel said.
While they continued to put themselves under pressure, Hannah said it was all about pushing themselves to try to achieve musical perfection.
"We've been together for a few years now and we're good friends . . . this is about playing together and making good music," she said.
