Momentum Leaders

“Rapidly emerging as one of Australia’s most exciting young artists” (ABC
Classic), Paul Nicolaou is a multi-award-winning harpist and composer
based in Sydney, Australia. Praised as “brilliant” (classikON), he has quickly
gained international recognition as a creative and virtuosic young artist,
receiving accolades including the 2026 Eva Pascoe Award, First Prize in the
2023 National Youth Music Arranging Competition and 2021 Monash
University Emerging Composer Prize.

A graduate from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with First Class
Honours, Paul studied under internationally celebrated harpist Alice Giles
AM. After commencing harp aged 16, he has quickly established himself as
an accomplished and sought-after performer, appearing as Guest Principal
Harp with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony
Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia among others. Paul also regularly
performs with the Opera Australia Orchestra, and was Principal Harp of the
Australian Youth Orchestra (AYO) from 2022-24. A regular performer with
AYO’s Momentum Ensemble, he was inaugural Co-Chair of the AYO Youth
Council in 2024-25 and a Media & Communication participant in 2026.

A selected composer for the Australian Music Centre’s 2025 MOMENTUM
Plus project, Paul has been commissioned by organisations such as ABC
Classic and the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), and has
participated in composition programs including AYO Composition in 2022
and the 2023 Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Composer Workshop.

Paul is also an experienced pianist, violinist, an accredited music arranger
with the Music Arrangers’ Guild of Australia and Australian Music Centre
Associate Artist. He has a strong in ludomusicology, working as an arranger
and researcher in the field of video game music.

Julia has been involved with Australian Youth Orchestra programs since 2018. She has attended all successive National Music Camps from 2018-2023, and all Flagship programs from 2022. She will also be participating in all 2025 programs for the AYO Momentum Ensemble. Julia graduated from her BMus Performance with First Class Honours (Double Bass) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, for her ground-breaking research into the history and development of the ikh khuur, the bass instrument of the Mongolian horsehead fiddle family. In 2022, she led the Sydney Conservatorium double bass section on an International European Orchestral Tour. In 2023, shortly after her graduation, she performed Tan Dun’s Wolf Totem Concerto as soloist with the Sydney Chinese Orchestra. Julia has established herself as one of the top emerging double bassists in Sydney. She has progressed to the final rounds of ANAM, ACO Emerging Artists, OA Patricia Reid Fellows, MSO academy, and the SSO fellowship. This year she has made her debut into Orchestra Victoria and the Opera Australia Orchestra, playing in Joby Talbot’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Oscar. She also frequently performs with Salut! Baroque on historical double bass, and in orchestral soundtracks for film, television and video games.

Abigail Lui is a Brisbane-based composer and violinist inspired by the stories that help us
make sense of the world. She has recently taken part in composition programs with the Australian Youth Orchestra in 2024 and 2025. As Camerata’s 2025 Emerging Composer-in-Residence, a
recipient of ABC Classic’s Composer Commissioning Fund (2024) and winner of Adelaide
Chamber Music School’s String Quartet Composition Prize (2022), she is fast gaining a
reputation for bold and intuitive writing that’s equally lucid in concert hall and community.

2024 has seen her string quartet Colour of Time recorded by Amiti Quartet for ABC Classic, piano trio Wayfarers recorded by Cerulean Collective for release through Corella Recordings, and on the choral-music side, a new piece for Voices of Birralee inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s artistic practice, and lyric-writing commission composed in collaboration with Elena Kats-Chernin. She has taken part in composition programs with Queensland Youth Orchestra (2023), Topology (2022-23), and Singapore-based choir Vox Camerata (2022-23). Her music has also been performed by Brisbane Chamber Choir, Lumens, Birralee Singers, and Vocal Australia, and she has written and performed music for films (Nosferatu and Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari).

Abigail is studying composition with Robert Davidson and violin withCourtenay Cleary, and previously Adam Chalabi, through a Bachelor of Music (Honours) and Science at the University of Queensland. Her Honours research explores how violin performance knowledge can enrich compositional practice through personal study and collaboration.

Jet Kye Chong is an award-winning Perth-based percussionist, composer and
researcher who was also Principal Percussion with the Australian Youth Orchestra in 2020. As a member of AYO Momentum Ensemble in 2025, he has toured nationally. Moreover, he has performed concerts across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. As a percussionist, Chong won the Malaysia Percussion Festival Performance Prize with his own work ‘Rev 3’ and is a two-time winner of the People’s Choice Award for the Vose Memorial Concerto Prize.

He has produced 5-star award-winning Fringeworld shows and toured internationally with his band “The Hár” in the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He recorded works of Myburgh for Australian and UK labels and recorded with Australian Baroque for ABC Classic.

Chong holds a Bachelor of Philosophy in Mathematics and Statistics, and Music Specialist Studies (Composition/Percussion), with First Class Honours. His research thesis ‘Predicting Marimba Stickings with Neural Networks’ won the 2020 Dr Vincent Harry Cooper Memorial Prize, the 2022 Statistical Society of Australia Louise Ryan Best Presentation Award and was recently published in the Australasian Joint Conference in AI proceedings.

Momentum Leaders 2025: “What does this project mean to you?”

This project is to me a reflection on how we, as a cohort
of young Australians, try to process the daily
technicolour rollercoaster that is the world. You can’t say
everything. Rather it feels like you can hardly begin to say
anything at all. In taking this opportunity to connect with
each other through telling the little stories and making
art rather than shouting with the share button, this
project is our lens on the daily experience.

“What’s an Untold Story in this project that really speaks to you- and
why?”

In chaotic moments of this work is an imprint of a story about
distraction and attention, hearing and listening. Art, and music
especially, brings my focus to this distinction in a creative context, but
in today’s social, technological and political climate, it is increasingly
important and seemingly decreasingly recognised. I hope in today’s
performance to have a shared experience of that fleeting moment
normally confined to our own minds when, consciously or otherwise, we make a choice.