To view 2019 calendar or import events please go to calendar
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The Sweet Country Air
Sunday 17th February at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Michael Lampard (baritone) and Alan Hicks (piano)
From the Severn’s banks to the streets of the city, we take you on a sightseeing tour through English song. Through the works of Finzi, W.C Denis Browne, the living composer Ian Venables, and some of Benjamin Britten’s folksong arrangements, this recital will catch the eye and ear of any passer-by.
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Love and Life
Sunday 31st March at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Rebecca Ryan (soprano) and Anthony Smith (piano)
Featuring the poignant, transcendental masterpiece Vier Letzte Lieder by Richard Strauss, this program explores the many facets of love and life. Encompassing the first spark of love through to the calm acceptance of death, Rebecca and Anthony also present Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben and songs by Duparc, Berlioz and Fauré.
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Russian Lullaby
Sunday 19th May at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Songmakers Australia with Merlyn Quaife (soprano), Christina Wilson (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Goodwin (tenor) and Andrea Katz (piano)
Nursery rhymes and lullabies are insightful windows into the parent-child relationship. Love and death, desires and fears are reflected in the lyrics, some of them allegoric, some outright confronting. Songs and duets by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky and Kabalevsky frame the centrepiece of this program, Shostakovich’s most touching, unusual and melancholy song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op.79.
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Soirée at St Alban’s
Sunday 16th June at 3pm
St Alban’s Church, 34 Chappell Street, Lyons
The Members’ Soirée will be a social gathering of members of Art Song Canberra in which we make music together, taking us back to the origin of Lieder societies. A small group of members will sing informally in the company of other, like-minded people. Members and their friends are cordially invited to attend. If you are interested, please send a message via the contact form . No costs are entailed. Non-members can participate by becoming a member at $25 per person.
Venus Unwrapped
Sunday 23rd June at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Sarahlouise Owens (soprano) and Natalia Tkachenko (piano)
An exploration through the largely overlooked repertoire of female composers throughout history… A slice of what women have created, and are only now being increasingly acknowledged. Works from the 18th century onwards, featuring works by Lang, Rich, Greenaway, Viardot, Malibran, Tailleferre, Boulanger, Chaminade and Mendelssohn.
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Iconic Inspiration
Sunday 18th August at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Lisa Cannizzaro (soprano), Jeremy Tatchell (baritone) and Elena Nikulina (piano)
If you could have only one song on repeat, what would it be? Join Lisa (soprano), Jeremy (baritone) and Elena (piano) for a recital filled with music that influenced some of history’s most iconic figures. It will be an afternoon of true inspiration, both sublime and absurd!
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Masterclass
Masterclass for performers of Art Song
Saturday 14th September at 2pm
Wesley Uniting Church, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Alan Hicks will give a masterclass for singers and accompanists. Audience will be very welcome. The masterclass is kindly and generously sponsored by the Wesley Music Foundation. Applications to participate are now invited from singers and pianists. For all details, see the call for applications. The deadline for applying is 5 Aug 2019.
L’Heure Exquise (The Exquisite Hour)
Sunday 22nd September at 3pm
Wesley Uniting Church, 22 National Circuit, Forrest
José Carbó (baritone), Andrew Blanch and Ariel Nurhadi (guitars)
The Trio’s debut recital L’Heure Exquise (The Exquisite Hour) is named after Reynaldo Hahn’s masterpiece. It features music by Schubert, Fauré, Debussy, Verdi and more, re-imagined by the trio for the colourful and original musical setting of voice and two guitars.
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Soirée at St Alban’s
Sunday 27th October at 3pm
St Alban’s Church, 34 Chappell Street, Lyons
The Members’ Soirée will be a social gathering of members of Art Song Canberra in which we make music together, taking us back to the origin of Lieder societies. A small group of members will sing informally in the company of other, like-minded people. Members and their friends are cordially invited to attend. If you are interested, please send a message via the contact form . No costs are entailed. Non-members can participate by becoming a member at $25 per person. PLEASE NOTE THE POSTPONEMENT BY ONE WEEK FROM THE PREVIOUSLY-ANNOUNCED DATE OF 20TH OCTOBER.
Season of Song Concert 7
Journey’s End
Sunday 24th November at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Christina Wilson (mezzo-soprano) and Alan Hicks (piano)
Is it a place, a time, or in lovers’ meeting? Perhaps it’s just another beginning… An end-of-year program exploring aspects of our human experience and destiny in Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis Op.39, Claude Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis, Peter Sculthorpe’s lyrical Shakespeare Songs and Enrico Granados’ La Maja Dolorosa.
This husband and wife duo has presented many recitals for Art Song Canberra and also for the Lieder Society of Victoria, the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music, the AIM concert series at the Art Gallery of NSW and by invitation at the 2013 International Conference of Voice Teachers at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. In 2016 they recorded for ABC Classics songs of FS Kelly A Race Against Time.
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The Artists
Tasmanian-born baritone, Michael Lampard, studied at the University of Tasmania under Suzanne Ortuso, completing a Master of Music in 2010. Since relocating to Melbourne, Michael has performed extensively with Victorian Opera, Melbourne Opera, Citi Opera, and as a chorister with Opera Australia. He has also performed many recitals and concerts in Australia, across Asia, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Europe. In 2007 Michael was a quarter-finalist in Placido Domingo’s ‘Operalia’ competition, and was twice been an award-winning finalist in the ‘Australian Singing Competition’. Operatic highlights include prominent roles in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi Fan Tutte and Die Zauberflöte, Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Die Walküre, Verdi’s La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, and Macbeth, as well as Puccini’s La Boheme and Tosca, and Bizet’s Carmen and The Pearl Fishers. Michael has also been prolific in new music, performing works by leading Australian and International composers on both the operatic stage and the concert platform. 2018 saw Michael sang the roles of Rigoletto, Don Giovanni, Kurwenal in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, the Soldier in the world premiere of James Humberstone’s The Weight of Light and a recital of English art song with string quartet in the United Kingdom.
Alan Hicks is one of Australia’s foremost vocal coaches and accompanists. He currently works in Vocal and Opera Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as coach, accompanist and tutor in diction. Alan was Head of Voice (2008-12) at the Canberra School of Music, coordinating a program including opera productions and regular performances at embassies and consular venues. Following postgraduate study at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, Alan was appointed Junior Fellow in Accompaniment, and subsequently joined the staff of RNCM as accompanist and tutor in piano, specializing in Mélodie, Lieder and English Song. Whilst in the UK he performed in song and chamber recitals at the Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, the Purcell Room, Three Choirs Festival, for Yehudi Menuhin’s Live Music Now! and in recordings and broadcasts for the BBC.
In 2013 Alan made his stage debut at the Street Theatre as Alain/Claude in the award-winning Bijou, starring and written by Chrissie Shaw – in subsequent years touring NSW and presenting seasons at La Mama Courthouse, Melbourne, the Depot Theatre, Sydney, and The Butterfly Club, Melbourne. In 2016 Alan recorded songs of F.S. Kelly for the ABC Classics CD A Race Against Time. In March 2018 he gave the premiere performances with baritone Michael Lampard of The Weight of Light by James Humberstone and Nigel Featherstone at the Street Theatre, Canberra and at Goulburn Regional Conservatorium. (Michael and Alan will perform the first concert in Art Song Canberra’s 2019 Season of Song). In April this year he travelled to Amiens in France for The Flowers of War, to perform in the world premiere of The Digger’s Requiem, a new work telling through music, the story of the Australian WW1 soldiers on the Western Front.
Rebecca Ryan came to prominence singing the UK première of the newly-discovered Gloria by Handel under the baton of Laurence Cummings. She is a graduate of Otago University and London’s Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) where she studied with Penelope McKay, was an Associate Artist with the Classical Opera Company, London and a recipient of an Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells’ Voice Fellowship enabling advanced study with Dame Anne Evans. Rebecca has appeared in concert performances worldwide in a varied repertoire from J.S. Bach, Pergolesi and Handel through to Mozart, Haydn, Mahler, Poulenc and Strauss. Operatic highlights include Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Olympia, Giulietta, Antonia, Stella in The Tales of Hoffmann, Micaëla in Carmen, Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Elvira in The Italian Girl in Algiers, Nannetta in Falstaff, Angelica in Orlando, Ilia in Idomeneo (arranged by Strauss), La Musica, Euridice in L’Orfeo, Poppea in Agrippina, Ermione in Handel’s Oreste and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel for companies including Scottish Opera, Opera North, Royal Opera, Opera Project, University of Otago Opera, Buxton Festival, Auckland Opera Studio and Southern Opera. Concerts include the Scottish Proms, Auckland Philharmonia, Chamber Music NZ concerts with La Belle Alliance, 2018 Classic Series, St Mary’s Basilica, Invercargill, Theresienmesse and Magnificat, City Choir Dunedin with the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, Last Night of the Proms, Invercargill, NZ. More recently Rebecca has performed with pianist Terence Dennis at Marama Hall, Dunedin, sang and produced the 2018 Classic Series, Invercargill, concerts in Waiuku and Howick and a C Minor Mass for the Cathedral Arts Festival, St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral. Her recordings include Handel’s Silete venti for Naxos, Heavenly Voice Don Carlos for Chandos, Ch’io mi scordi di te (with Barry Douglas) for RTÉ TV’s The Symphony Sessions and Exsultate Jubilate for RTÉ TV’s The Mozart Sessions. Her latest recording, Father and Son: Music by John and Anthony Ritchie for Ode Records was released in 2014.
A graduate of the ANU School of Music (B Mus [Hons], 1999; PhD, 2017), Anthony Smith is a Canberra-based pianist, composer and musicologist. As a pianist, he has performed in Australia, England, Germany, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and the USA. He has a particular interest in the works of Constant Lambert, the subject of his PhD thesis, Constant Lambert: Dionysian Modernist. Anthony has worked as an accompanist for the ANU School of Music for many years, performing hundreds of assessable recitals with undergraduate and postgraduate students. Anthony is also the répétiteur of three major Canberra choirs: The Llewellyn Choir (since 2002), Canberra Choral Society (since 2007), and the ANU Choral Society (SCUNA, since 2008).
In 2004, he released the CD A Year in Paris with clarinettist Nicole Canham on the Move label. Anthony’s compositions include The Will to Freedom, a music-theatre work he co-wrote with Maike Brill, which premièred at The Street Theatre in August 2010 under New York-based director Joanne Schultz. For The Llewellyn Choir, he composed a setting of the Prologue to the Coventry Nativity Play (premièred 2013; revived 2015). For Canberra Choral Society, he composed Mass in C Minor “Latin” (premièred 2014).
This is Anthony’s ninth appearance for Art Song Canberra and second with Rebecca Ryan: they performed Best of British in the 2011 Season of Song. Anthony’s other appearances for the organisation were with Colin Slater (2000), Matthew Henrick (2002, 2005), Warwick Fyfe (2003), Catriona DeVere (2004), Michael Lampard (2013) and Rachael Duncan (2017).
Unique in the musical landscape of Australia, Songmakers Australia brings together some of the country’s leading singers and instrumentalists in a diverse repertoire comprising some of the pinnacles of all chamber music. Under the artistic patronage of Graham Johnson, founding director of the acclaimed London-based Songmakers Almanac, pianist Andrea Katz teams with soprano Merlyn Quaife, mezzo-soprano Christina Wilson, tenor Andrew Goodwin and bass-baritone Nicholas Dinopoulos in inspired programs that feature a dynamic interplay of song and chamber music.
The ensemble presents a yearly subscription series at the Melbourne Recital Centre, where they have been Local Heroes since their foundation in 2011. They enjoy numerous invitations to perform at leading festivals and recital series Australia-wide (Melbourne Festival, Art Gallery of NSW, Peninsula Summer Music Festival, Art Song Canberra and the Art Gallery of Ballarat) and they are regularly heard in national live-to-air broadcasts.
See Songmakers Australia for more information.
Merlyn Quaife, soprano, is a performer of great versatility and her regular performances have included opera, oratorio, chamber music, lieder and contemporary music. She is a great champion of new music and has had many works composed for her. She has premiered many roles and works, including the 1993 title role in Gordon Kerry’s Medea with Chamber Made Opera (Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra). It was with this role that she made her American debut at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC in 1994. A new production was mounted in Berlin where she again sang the title role. In 2010 Merlyn created the role of Betty Joy in the Opera Australia production of BLISS by Brett Dean. The opera was performed in Sydney, Melbourne and the 2010 Edinburgh Festival.
In 2013 she sang Ortlinde in the OA RING and in the same year was awarded an AM for ‘Services to music’. Merlyn is a foundation member of ‘Songmakers Australia’, sings regularly at St Francis Church and is the current Coordinator of Classical Voice at the Sir Zelman Cowan School of Music, Monash University where she runs an innovative voice program. Merlyn appears on CD with Naxos, ABC Classics, Tall Poppies and Move.
Winner of the Australian Singing Competition’s Marianne Mathy Award and prize winning graduate of the Canberra School of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music and the National Opera Studio London, mezzo-soprano Christina Wilson has appeared in performances throughout the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia.
She has sung as a soloist at the Royal Albert Hall, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and in recital at the Wigmore Hall, the Temple Square and the Paris Conservatoire. With Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, Belfast Opera and the State Opera of South Australia she has sung the roles of Clitemnestre, Carmen, Cenerentola, Rosina, Cherubino, Dido, Dorabella and in recent years for Handel in Theatre, the roles of David (Saul), Irene (Theodora), Dejanira (Hercules) and Storgé (Jephtha; the Vow) staged at the Canberra Playhouse and conducted by Brett Weymark.
Christina is broadcast regularly ABC Classic FM and appears locally, nationally and internationally in concert and oratorio. She is a core member of Songmakers Australia performing most recently at the Melbourne Recital Centre. For the Flowers of War Project, she sang in April 2018 in the world première of The Digger’s Requiem in Amiens and in October in its Australian première in Lllewellyn Hall, Canberra. In 2016 she was recorded for the ABC Classics recording A Race against Time – the music of Frederick Septimus Kelly, launched with a concert tour of Australia (Four Winds Festival; Bermagui; The High Court, Canberra; St James, Sydney; The Fremantle Festival), France (Querrieu, the Somme; Les Invalides, Paris) and England (Baliol College, Oxford; Clothesworkers Guild, London). Future recording is scheduled for the Australia War Memorial and with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in 2019.
President of the ACT Chapter of the Australian National Association of Teachers of Singing, Christina regularly adjudicates and gives masterclasses nationally and internationally (NIDA, AIM, Universität fur darstellende Kunst, Vienna). She has taught at tertiary level for many years, from 2009-12 at the ANU School of Music and currently at the University of Canberra and UNSW as a Performance Tutor. She also runs adult singing classes in Canberra and at the Sydney University Conservatorium Open Academy.
Andrew Goodwin has appeared with opera companies in Europe, the UK, Asia and Australia, including the Bolshoi Opera, Gran Theatre Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, La Scala Milan, and Opera Australia.
He has performed with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, Moscow and Melbourne Chamber Orchestras, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, the Adam Chamber Music Festival NZ, Huntington and Coriole Festivals, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and Sydney Chamber Opera,
In 2018 Andrew maked his role and house debut as Nadir (The Pearlfishers) for State Opera of South Australia. He also returned to Pinchgut Opera in the title role of Artaxerxes. Concert performances include Messiah with MSO and QSO, with SSO (Brett Dean’s The Last Days of Socrates), Sydney Philharmonia (Bach B Minor Mass), Melbourne Bach Choir (Mozart Requiem and Bach Cantata).
Andrea Katz is a pianist, accompanist and vocal coach of extraordinary versatility. Argentine born, she is equally at home with Chamber Music, German Lieder and Grand Opera. She studied piano with Francisco Amicarelli and Jorge Fontenla at the School of Music of the National University of San Juan, Argentina. She studied with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris, Alexander Tamir in Jerusalem and specialised in the interpretation of German Lieder with Graham Johnson in London.
Since becoming an Australian resident in 1990, she has worked with all major musical organisations in the country: Opera Australia, Victorian Opera, Sydney Symphony, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane Festivals, Sydney Music Conservatorium and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She works regularly with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Aldeburgh Festival (UK) and Auckland Philharmonia.
A prolific recital pianist, she performs regularly with prominent Australian and international singers and ensembles, including a yearly season at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Highlights of the last eleven seasons are recitals with Yvonne Kenny, Peter Coleman-Wright, Emma Matthews, The Sydney Omega Ensemble, The Sydney Soloists, cellist David Pereira, and violinists Pekka Kuusisto and Gil Shaham.
She is the founder of Songmakers Australia, a vibrant vocal ensemble dedicated to performing repertoire in programs of superbly themed settings and song. Since 2009 she is the Director of the Vocal Ensemble at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. Currently she also teaches at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University. She has released two CDs with soprano Merlyn Quaife, “Lest we Forget” and “Fortune my Foe”.
Sarahlouise Owens has worked extensively in Europe including for the Radio Choir in Cologne, Theatre Hagen, Brussels’ La Monnaie, Paris Châtelet, and the theatres of Frankfurt and Hannover. Most significantly she has been a consistent member of the ensemble of the Wagner Summer Festival in Bayreuth where she has sung the role of an Edeldame from Lohengrin, and covered a Blumenmädchen from Parsifal.
She is a graduate of the ANU School of Music and Royal Northern College of Music Manchester; and has studied with various prestigious singing teachers in both Australia and Europe; including masterclasses with such noted artists as Brigitte Fassbaender, Renata Scotto, Nelly Miricioiu, Geoffrey Parsons amongst others.
Since her return to Canberra she has been actively performing, having sung concerts with Art Song and Wesley Foundation; and as a soloist in the Canberra International Music Festival, Handel in the Theatre ; and with some of Canberra’s choral groups such as SCUNA, UC Chorale and Canberra Choral Society. She also has a successful teaching portfolio and conducts a number of local choirs. Most recently with Canta Viva, she has sung Violetta in a 1-hour version of La Traviata, with a view to touring the regions with Colleen Rae-Gerrard.
Natalia Tkachenko graduated with honours from the Moscow State Institute of Music. Performances include the piano part in the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot at a South Korean theatre festival and works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Verdi with the Youth Opera Theatre in Moscow, France and Germany. Since arriving in Canberra in 2003, she has performed as an accompanist for ANU School of Music, winning the prize for Best Accompanist in the 2006 Australian National Eisteddfod and performing with cellist David Pereira, vocalists Sarahlouise Owens, Damian Whiteley, Tobias Cole and Canberra Chorale Society, pianist Elena Nikulina and others in various venues, including Government House.
Natalia’s outstanding work as a piano teacher was recognised when AMEB NSW placed her within the top ten teachers for 2013 and 2015 in the category Private Teacher Pianoforte (Preliminary to Sixth Grade). Those attending the Canberra International Music Festival in 2015 will have heard Natalia’s student, Daniel Pan, perform the Beethoven Sonata Op 49 Number 1 in G minor.
Adelaide-born soprano, Lisa Cannizzaro, is a graduate of the Elder Conservatorium of Music. She began her professional career in 2007 with South Australian touring company Co-Opera’s production of Kiss Me, Kate. Following that, she sang the roles of Musetta (La Bohème), Barbarina (The Marriage of Figaro), Despina (Cosi fan tutte), Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance), First Sprite/First and Second Lady (The Magic Flute) and Annina (La Traviata), amongst others, for Co-Opera. Lisa has also sung several minor roles with State Opera S.A., as well as being a core chorus member since 2010, and was a James & Diana Ramsey Young Artist in 2014-15. Lisa has won several prizes for singing, including the Friends of State Opera Dawn Wallace Aria Competition in 2013.
New Zealand born baritone Jeremy Tatchell has achieved extensive performance experience in opera, oratorio, concert and recital. After completing performance studies in both viola and voice at the ANU School of Music in 2001, Jeremy joined the Adelaide-based company Co-Opera, performing and touring numerous major roles throughout Australia, Asia and Europe.
Since his chorus debut for State Opera South Australia in 2011 in its production of La Sonnambula, Jeremy has performed in its productions of Moby Dick and Fidelio. He was made a James and Diana Ramsay Foundation Young and Emerging Artist with SOSA in 2014 and 2015. Jeremy has performed the roles of Rhadamanthus (Orpheus in the Underworld), First Nazarene (Salome), Surgeon (La Forza del Destino), Imperial Commissioner (Madame Butterfly) and Barone Douphol (La Traviata), Parsi Rustomji (Satyagraha) and Herald/Chorus (Otello), Bluebeard (Bluebeard’s Castle), Colas (Bastien und Bastienne), Speaker (Magic Flute), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Valentin (Faust), Angelotti (Tosca), Alfio (Cavalleria Rusticana), Silvio (I Pagliacci), Manuel (La Vida Breve), Marco (Gianni Schicchi) and Nachtigall (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg). Jeremy has also appeared in the chorus for the Adelaide Festival’s productions of Saul, for which he also covered the lead, and Brett Dean’s Hamlet.
Jeremy’s oratorio and recital repertoire includes Orff’s Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem, J.S. Bach’s Passions, Magnificat, B Minor Mass and Cantatas BWV 56, 78, 82, 140, 150 & 158, Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Mass, Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Belshazzar and Israel in Egypt, Haydn’s Creation, Schubert’s Winterreise and Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death.
Elena Nikulina is an accomplished classically trained pianist, who graduated in 1999 from the Donetsk State Conservatoire, Ukraine, with a Master’s degree in pianoforte and accompaniment having studied under Professors Natalia Chesnokova and Natalia Strochan. At the Conservatoire she was winner of the ‘Best Accompanist Competition’ and selected to represent the Ukraine as a member of the piano ensemble at the Musical Competition in Pavia, Italy. While in the Ukraine, Elena was the concertmaster to the Donetsk Academy Musical Theatre and the Ballet Troupe of the Donetsk Academy Musical Theatre. She was also a founder member of the Viola Chamber Trio, Donetsk.
Elena’s repertoire is wide ranging from classical concertos, sonatas, opera’s, arias and romances to the modern style. She has performed extensively in Australia and overseas in the Ukraine, Italy, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as a solo and four-hand pianist. She has extensive experience as an accompanist working with opera singers, choirs and a range of musicians who have included cellists, flautists, violinists, saxophonists and trumpeters. Since moving to Canberra in 2006 Elena has performed as a soloist, four-hand pianist and accompanist in Canberra, Victoria and throughout New South Wales. Elena has worked extensively with baritone Jeremy Tatchell, accompanying him in 2010 in his accomplished performance of Schumann’s Liederkreis Opus 39, in 2012 with Schubert’s Winterreise and in his well received 2016 concert From Russia (and New Zealand) with Love which included songs composed by Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Lilburn and Farquhar.
Besides performing Elena is acknowledged in Canberra as a high level piano teacher and has prepared many students for the Australian Music Examination Board (AMEB) examinations up to Licentiate Diploma in Music, Australia (L.Mus.A.). In 2016 Elena was recognised by the AMEB as one of the top 10 private keyboard teachers in New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory. In 2017 the AMEB selected her for the prestigious award of the Most Outstanding Private Teacher in the keyboard category (preliminary to Grade 6) for NSW and the ACT.
Due to her dedication as a teacher many of her students have won first prize in eisteddfods and competitions as well as securing musical scholarships. She believes giving the gift of music to children, not only provides them with an inner confidence, but also nurtures the joy of music that will travel with them through life’s long journey.
Argentine-Australian baritone José Carbó is one of the most exciting operatic artists of his generation. Consistently praised for his smooth, rich, powerful voice, easy top notes and magnetic stage presence, José has performed in the leading houses of the world including Teatro alla Scala, Teatro Real Madrid, Los Angeles Opera, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Seattle Opera and Opera Australia. José’s triumphant Verdi debut in 2013 as Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera at Opera Australia described by the Sydney Morning Herald as “an object lesson in Verdi singing” led to further important Verdi role debuts including the title role in Rigoletto, Rodrigo in Don Carlo and his now signature role of Germont La Traviata, earning him the reputation of “Australia’s leading Verdi lyric baritone” (Limelight Magazine).
In 2018, José returned to Opera Australia as Germont in La Traviata, opposite Corinne Winters, and toured Australia with superstar Sumi Jo. In 2017, he sang Germont in La Traviata opposite Ermonela Jaho and Alfio/Tonio in Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci for Opera Australia, for which he was nominated for a second Helpmann Award and praised for his “peerless Prologue, sung with polished and glowingly powerful cantabile.” (Sydney Morning Herald)
José’s debut album, My Latin Heart, released by ABC Classics, was nominated for the ARIA Classical Record of the year and debuted at No. 1 on the Limelight Magazine Classical Music charts
Andrew Blanch is recognised as one of Australia’s leading young classical guitarists. He made his solo recital debut at the Sydney Opera House in 2017 to critical acclaim and to date his career has taken him around the world. His debut CD Spanish Guitar Music “secured this young musician’s place amongst a glittering Australian classical guitar constellation” (Limelight Magazine). In addition to his work with the The José Carbó Trio, Andrew’s 2018 engagements include: concerto soloist in Nigel Westlake’s Antarctica Suite with the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer, invited artist to perform and adjudicate at the 3rd Biennial New Zealand Guitar Competition in Wellington, and a solo European tour including concerts in the UK, Italy and Spain, where he is a featured artist performing and giving masterclasses at the Festival Guitarra Maestro Joaquin Rodrigo.
Andrew is a graduate of Timothy Kain’s renowned guitar class at Australian National University and won ten major competition prizes including First Place in both the Melbourne International Guitar Competition (2016) and the Whitworth-Roach Classical Music Competition (2015).
Melbourne-born Ariel Nurhadi is a Sydney-based classical guitarist. His diverse collaborations to date have included Llewellyn Quartet, an opera production of Dido and Aeneas, the clarinet-guitar ensemble Duo Divan and Canberra’s 2015 Voices in the Forest with José Carbó and Diego Torre of Opera Australia. Ariel’s first solo album will feature works by Federico Moreno-Torroba, Manuel Ponce, Joaquin Turina, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Alexandre Tansman, as well as a collection of Catalan folksongs arranged by guitarist Miguel Llobet.
Ariel’s 2018 engagements include a tour of Australia with The José Carbó Trio, a tour of New Zealand with guitarist Andrew Blanch and Ariel will also adjudicate and perform at the 3rd Biennial New Zealand Guitar Competition, Wellington, New Zealand. Ariel is a graduate of Timothy Kain’s renowned guitar class at the ANU, which he completed with first-class honours before being accepted into a PhD program under the auspices of the competitive Australian Postgraduate Award.