The Australian Youth Orchestra

Lachlan Bramble is a violinist, educator as well as an occasional union activist and recording producer.

Currently Lachlan is Associate Principal 2^nd Violin of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and violinist with the Benaud Trio. He has also been a guest musician with the Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, Orchestra Victoria and the Australian String Quartet.

A passionate educator, Lachlan has tutored violins of the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Adelaide Youth Orchestra and at many National Music Camps. He has also been a tutor at the Chamber Music Summer School – Mount Buller, is Program Coordinator of the Adelaide Chamber Music School and was Director of the Elder Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra from 2011 – 2015. Lachlan also enjoys teaching violin privately.

Lachlan began violin lessons from his mother in the mid-80s. He went on to study music at the University of Melbourne under Mark Mogilevsky and continued with Barbara-Jane Gilby at the Australian National University gaining a Masters degree in Music Performance. Lachlan has also taken lessons in Europe with Lydia Mordkovitch, Howard Davis, Dora Schwarzberg, Peter Sheppard-Skaerved and performed in masterclasses with Cho-Liang Lin and Regis Pasquier. He was a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra from 2001 to 2005, performing as concertmaster in 2005.

In his spare time, Lachlan is a delegate with the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, recording producer plays indoor cricket with the Full Tossers.

Recently appointed Associate Concertmaster of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Glenn Christensen is in demand as a soloist, chamber musician and guest principal musician in Australia and internationally. From 2020 until 2025 he held the position of Deputy Concertmaster and Principal 2^nd Violin with Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, was a full-time member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra from 2014 to 2020, and Principal First Violin in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra from 2012 to 2014. He has regularly appeared as Concertmaster and/or director with Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, as well as Principal 2nd Violin with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. 

Born and raised in the regional Queensland town of Mackay, Glenn received his early music education through the Suzuki Method with local teacher Diane Powell. He studied with Associate Professor Michele Walsh at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University,  graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Music, First Class Honours. He was also the first person ever to be awarded the three highest prizes – the Conservatorium Medal, the Music Medal and the University Medal. During his studies, Glenn was the Concertmaster of the Australian Youth Orchestra in 2012 and 2013 and an Australian Chamber Orchestra Emerging Artist in 2012.

As a soloist, Glenn has performed with Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra on multiple occasions. He has had performance broadcast live on ABC Classic FM, was a finalist in the 2014 ABC Young Performer Awards, and in 2009 won every category in the prestigious Kendall National Violin Competition. Glenn is also the violinist in the Lyrebird Trio, which won both the audience choice prize and the Piano Trio prize in the 2013 Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition.

Glenn has appeared at festivals and masterclasses around Australia and internationally, such as the Musica Viva Festival, Coriole Music Festival, Music by the Springs, Bangalow Festival, Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, Tyalgum Festival and the International Musician’s Seminar, Prussia Cove. In 2018, Glenn started a successful annual festival in his hometown – the Mackay Chamber Music Festival.

Violinist Monica Curro has been Assistant Principal 2nd Violin of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 1998, and was previously a core member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She has played with the Australian World Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Guest Concertmaster of West Australian Symphony Orchestra and Auckland Chamber Orchestra. In 2009, Monica was invited as the only Australian to play in the World Orchestra for Peace, and has since joined them regularly for concerts around the world. Monica has appeared as soloist with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and in 2012 gave the world premiere of Stefan Cassomenos’ Double Violin Concerto, with her sister Sarah. Monica was a member of the Board of Directors of the Australian Youth Orchestra for 9 years. She has tutored regularly for AYO, and has taught at various tertiary institutions. In 2016, Monica was the Director of the AYO’s Smalley Chamber Orchestra. Also in that year, she directed MSO’s outreach program in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Monica is currently joint Artistic Director of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, together with pianist and composer Stefan Cassomenos. Monica was Artistic Director of Melbourne’s Women in Music Festival 2019-20, and since 2022 has curated the “Music at McClelland” series at McClelland Sculpture Park & Gallery. Monica is sought after as a public speaker, giving regular pre-concert talks and conversations for major concert presenters, as well as keynote addresses at universities and educational organizations. Monica is a founding member of acclaimed ensemble PLEXUS, which since launching in 2014 has commissioned and premiered more than 110 new works.

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From the set of Play School to the mainstage of the Sydney Opera House, internationally acclaimed powerhouse Claire Edwardes is ‘the sorceress of percussion’ (Canberra City News). The only Australian to win the ‘APRA Art Music Luminary Award’ four times and recently awarded an OAM for her services to Australian music, Claire leaps between her role as Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring and concerto performances with all of the Australian orchestras.

With her roots grounded in classical music (starting piano at age 5), Claire has focused her career as a percussionist on the music of our time. She is passionate about the wide dissemination of living new music to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Collaboration is at the heart of her musical practice, having worked with many of Australia’s leading and emerging composers and performers to expand the percussion and chamber music repertoire. She has had over 50 new works written for her as a soloist and Ensemble Offspring have commissioned over 300 new works throughout their 27 years in the industry.

Her latest project Rhythms of Change presents new solo percussion repertoire by Australian female composers written for high school and tertiary percussionists to bring better gender equity to student programming. Claire is the Australian Keychange Ambassador as well as the Donne Women in Music Ambassador and as such has a strong focus on gender equity in all that she does. In recent years Claire has also had the opportunity to work closely with First Nations Composers through Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers with Ensemble Offspring and is a staunch facilitator of Australian First Nations musical voices.

Claire’s stellar career spans over 20 years of performing, commissioning, collaborating and championing new music both in Australia and Europe. She is the most recent percussionist to win the Young Performers Award back in 1999. From 1999-2006 while resident in the Netherlands, she developed a successful international career as a percussion soloist and versatile chamber musician. While there she undertook a Masters of Music at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories, won the Tromp Percussion Competition (Eindhoven, 2000), Llangollen International Instrumentalist (Wales, 2001) and Concertgebouw Vriendenkrans Prize (Amsterdam, 2001). She also founded her percussion group Duo Vertigo and collaborated regularly with new music legends Ictus Ensemble, Slagwerk Den Haag as well as pianists Nicolas Hodges and Tomoko Mukaiyama and composers Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Unsuk Chin.

Under Claire’s leadership, her group Ensemble Offspring is now one of Australia’s most significant commissioners and exponents of new music and in recognition they were awarded a prestigious 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Group Award. As a soloist and with Ensemble Offspring, Claire has performed at international festivals from Mona Foma Festival (Tasmania) and Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Utrecht) to Queensland Music Festival (Cooktown), Music on Main (Vancouver) and Shanghai New Music Week (China). Claire is endorsed by Adams Percussion and Vic Firth and is a member of the percussion department at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

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Flinders Quartet (FQ) is instantly recognisable as one of Australia’s most loved chamber music ensembles. They are a quartet for the 21st century and a highly respected force in Australian chamber music, entering their third decade with acknowledged musical skill and maturity.

For almost twenty-five years, FQ has followed a unique path and lives up to their motto of “caring for tradition, daring to be different” through a busy schedule encompassing live and online performances, commissioning, recording, education and mentorship programs including the successful composer development programs ‘Ascend’ and ‘Emerge’, and outreach activities through their artistic patronage of John Noble’s Itet regional quartet program, Resonance String Orchestra, and Musica Viva’s Strike a Chord championship.

Can you tell us a bit about you, and what you are up to these days?

Not long after my last AYO season I graduated as an engineer and moved to Switzerland to work in my new profession. While tramping (summer) and skiing (winter) in the mountains as well as weekend trips away in my old VW beetle formed the basis of non-work pursuits, I did have my cello with me and got together occasionally with a German work colleague who played piano. After marriage to Irene, whom I had met at university in Melbourne, we returned to Australia to start a family, seek a home and as it turned out, remake a career far removed from engineering.

In 1968 I joined the Australian Trade Commissioner Service and commenced a fascinating gypsy life living overseas in different countries, working to develop markets for Australian businesses and cement sound trade relations in countries in Africa, South and North America, the Middle East and Europe. Like many amateur musicians, the pressures of work, family and regular moves resulted is little opportunity to play music with others.

After retirement I did decide to start playing again, so bought a new cello, found a teacher, and practised as hard as I had ever done! It was wonderful find an organisation, the Amateur Chamber Music Society which had been set up by some of the people I remembered from AYO and Music Camp days. ACMS provides a wonderful opportunity for players of all ages and abilities and now operates in a number of Australian cities. I was able to enjoy orchestral playing again with the North Sydney Symphony, Musicus Medicus (the NSW Doctors’ orchestra) and even with the Darwin Symphony Orchestra on one visit up north. Our daughter plays double bass with the DSO. With age and arthritis my enthusiasm for playing has now receded. But not my enthusiasm for attending performances and supporting organisations such as AYO. In recent years I have been spending time in the world of books and writing, editing and publishing works by my late mother-in-law Kathryn Purnell.

What was a highlight of your time in AYO programs?

The experience was wonderful: playing under icons of Australian music such as John Bishop, Sir Bernard Heinze and John Hopkins. And unlike today, we played with the cream of Australian soloists such as Stephen McIntyre and Charmian Gadd. We did play once with a young Daniel Barenboim, also a memorable experience.

What skills, musical and otherwise, did you take away from your time at AYO?

Working as a tutti player in an orchestra demands a number of skills: the discipline of preparing your part alone, working collaboratively with your sectional team and the fun orchestra. It builds listening skills and the ability to remember and follow instructions. All this develops the knowledge that cohesion brings strength. These skills were all of great benefit in my career as an Australian Trade Commissioner.

Why do you think AYO is important to the Australian cultural landscape?

It was always great to be part of an orchestra playing masterworks of the symphonic repertoire: Sibelius, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky. I recall we rarely played Australian music. We did play Margaret Sutherland’s Dithyramb in 1959 and it formed part of the first ever AYO LP recording.

How would you describe AYO in three words?

Excellence; intensity; inclusiveness.

Is there anything else you would like to tell us about you or your time at AYO?

I often mention that I was on the first ever AYO tour… That the tour was from Melbourne to Sydney, by train, with a change at Albury because the single gauge line had not yet been built, seems not to impress today’s young musicians, often recently returned from China or Europe! How times have changed.

Emma Gregan plays Tutti Horn with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and is an Alliance Brass artist.

She holds a PhD in Musicology from the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium, and a Bachelor of Music with Class I Honours from the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. Emma has performed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Camerata, Adelaide Baroque, Opera Australia’s South Pacific, Disney’s The Lion King, and the Welsh Theatre Company for the Tongyeong International Music Festival in South Korea.

Emma has also built a profile as a composer specialising in writing for horn and brass. Her works have been performed across Australia, the USA, Europe, and Japan. Several of her pieces are now also published in the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) Series 2 Horn Syllabus grade books.

Emma is enthusiastic about building and contributing to education and community programs: she maintains a private teaching studio and is the Artistic Director of the Adelaide Horn Jam. She is regularly invited to teach at the Elder Conservatorium and Adelaide Youth Orchestras, and has appeared as a guest tutor at the Queensland Conservatorium Brass Weekend and the Australian Youth Orchestra’s National Music Camp.

Violin

AYO: 1987-88, 1990
AYO National Music Camp: 1986-88

Anne Harvey-Nagl, born in Melbourne, was a member of the AYO between 1987 and 1991 .

After completion of the BAMus at the VCA she continued violin studies in Vienna with Prof. Günter Pichler.

Anne was the winner of the 1986 National Youth Concerto Competition and in 1990 received the ANZ International Fellowship for musical studies overseas.

Anne has been a member of the Koehne Quartet together with fellow AYO Alumni Joanna Lewis, since 1991, and is Concertmaster of the Volksoper Orchestra, Vienna, the Beethoven Philharmonie Baden, Vienna Opera Ball Orchestra and Guest Concertmaster in numerous orchestras throughout Austria and Europe. Anne has performed regularly as soloist with orchestras in Austria, Australia, Switzerland, England and Bulgaria.

Anne performed in the Australian World Orchestra’s 2015 concert series with Sir Simon Rattle OM CBE, which included a thrilling collaboration with AYO.

Zoe Knighton is a founding member and Artistic Director of Flinders Quartet, one of Australia’s finest chamber ensembles.

The group has commissioned many works, been nominated for an ARIA for best classical album and continues to be a champion of Australian Chamber music. “Flinders Quartet… whose players give such care and unanimity of musical thought to Australian Chamber Music” (Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald)

Zoe started the cello at the age of 9 with Jill Kahans before learning from Christian Wojtowicz, Michel Strauss (Paris) Nelson Cooke, and Angela Sargeant, she is now in demand as chamber coach and teacher at various institutions.

She has released 10 CDs on the MOVE label, 7 with duo partner Amir Farid and been praised for her “thrilling tenor sound”. (Limelight magazine) “She radiates confidence in her work and participates with personality and no little finesse. “Well worth hearing for the pleasure given through this player’s familiar warmth and honesty of musical character.” (Clive O’Connell). Together with Farid, they have performed and broadcast widely and give their Carnegie Hall debut in April, 2023.

Zoe is artistic patron of Resonance String Ensemble in Woodend and plays on a 2020 cello made by Australian instrument maker Rainer Beilharz and a 1780 cello by Benjamin Banks. In order to maintain conversations with her children, she finds herself a proud supporter of Hawthorn Football Club, Yarraville Seddon Eagles, Westage Imperial and Footscray Hawks basketball teams and Footscray City gymnastics.

Written in September, 2024

Genevieve Lang, a distinguished harpist and broadcaster, has enchanted Australian audiences with her exceptional performances and insightful commentary. Whether on stage with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra or in her long-standing collaboration with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, her contributions to the music world are well recognised. As a founding member of the Seven Harp Ensemble (SHE), Genevieve has also shone as a soloist with orchestras across Australia and beyond. 

Today, you’re more likely to hear her voice than her harp as Genevieve shares her passion for classical music as a presenter on ABC Classic. From the thrill of AYO’s 1994 European Tour to her current role at ABC, Genevieve’s story is a vibrant example of how the rhythms of one’s early experiences continue to shape a lifelong career in music.

Alumni Interview

Cello

AYO: 1958-1962
AYO National Music Camp: 1958-1959, 1961-1962

I have no doubt that attending my first National Music camp at age 14 was the catalyst which launched me on the path to a career as a cellist. Being lucky enough to attend a school where music was really important, (they even had a full symphony orchestra), I was taken aback to find dozens of like-minded teenagers at my first camp and realized that I was only on the bottom rung of the ladder!

Inspired by older role models, more advanced students and the many wonderful tutors I encountered at Camps, I went home determined to work harder. The next year I was selected for AYO, and this was the beginning of a long and successful career as an orchestral and chamber musician, at first in Australia and then in Europe. For ten years I toured with my husband, Bruce Lawrence (viola) with the Deltic Trio, as section leaders of several Chamber Orchestras in the U.K., and as the lower half of a string quartet.

Returning to Australia I taught at Sydney Conservatorium and pioneered string programs in schools, as well as maintaining a very busy private studio. I have produced many very successful students and have been proud to send many to National Music Camp and to AYO. Both my sons also took part in these programmes, Adrian as a cellist and Julian as a viola player.

I was for 40 years a String Examiner with the AMEB, and Chief Examiner of Strings in the Education Department of NSW for 30 of those years. I am passionate in my commitment to seeing as many children as possible awakened to the world of music in their formative years. I have especially devoted the latter part of my career to this end and can number many professional cellists among my former students both in Australia and in Europe.

In the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours List I am proud to have received the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to music education.

Violin

Tutor: 2015-17
AYO: 1984-88
AYO National Music Camp: 1983

As a violinist and Director with the London Symphony Orchestra and member of the Fiorini piano trio, Belinda McFarlane performs regularly throughout the world. An AYO alumnus, Belinda mentored AYO musicians as Director of the Porter Orchestra during the 2017 National Music Camp and as an inspirational tutor during the AYO 2016 International Tour.

Violin

AYO: 1989
AYO National Music Camp: 1987-88

Anna McMichael is an Australian-born violinist who returned in 2010 to live in Australia after 17 years in Holland, performing in many of the major European ensembles and orchestras; these included the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. Anna’s many achievements include working as guest concertmaster for various orchestras such as Orchestra Victoria, an acclaimed solo violin release, extensive tutoring work and awards including the Special Violin Prize of the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition. 

Anna performed in the Australian World Orchestra’s 2015 concert series with Sir Simon Rattle OM CBE, which included a thrilling collaboration with AYO.

Born in Melbourne in 2002, Australian cellist Charlotte Miles captivates audiences with her “keen musical intelligence, assured technique and honeyed tone” (Sydney Morning Herald). Awarded over 100 Australian and international competition prizes, she was recently awarded the special prize of the Mozart-Gesellschaft München at the 73rd International ARD Cello Competition in 2024. She has performed as a soloist with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, ACO Collective, the Corpus Medicorum, Bendigo, Preston, Surrey Hills and Maroondah symphony orchestras and the ANAM Orchestra, amongst numerous others, and was a prize-winner at the 2018 Gisborne (NZ) International Music Competition and the 2020 “Anna Kull” International Cello Competition in Graz (AT). In 2019, she was the 3MBS Radio Young Performer of the Year and winner of the Australian National Young Virtuoso Award.

The first Australian student at the Kronberg Academy, where she studies with Prof. Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt in the Professional Studies Program, Charlotte recently completed her Master’s degree in his class at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Franz Liszt’ in Weimar. She is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and of the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), where she studied with Howard Penny, and where she won both the Concerto Competition and the Most Outstanding Recital Performance Prize in 2021. She has benefitted from the guidance of cellists including Jean-Guihen Queyras, Nicolas Altstaedt, Jens-Peter Maintz, Clemens Hagen, Torleif Thedéen, Wen-Sinn Yang, Johannes Goritski, Maria Kliegel, David Finckel and Alban Gerhardt, and was invited to the prestigious 2016 Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in Los Angeles, where she performed alongside leading cellists such as Mischa Maisky, Truls Mørk, Sol Gabetta and Giovanni Sollima. For the 2025/26 season, she is a laureate of the Gautier Capuçon Foundation in Paris.

A passionate soloist and chamber musician, recent highlights have included performances at the Landshut (DE), Oxford May (UK) and Stamford International (UK) chamber music festivals, and a collaborative cross-disciplinary project with Jean-Guihen Queyras with performances at the Festival Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence (FR) and the Cello Biënnale Amsterdam (NL). Her chamber music collaborators include Timothy Ridout, Ilya Gringolts, Matthew Hunt, Jack Liebeck, Richard Galliano, Peter Laul, Julian Bliss and Charles Owen. Within Australia, she has performed at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the Sanguine Estate and Bendigo Chamber Music Festivals, the Melbourne Cello Festival, the ACO’s Tarrawarra and Vasse Felix Festivals, and on Australian Digital Concert Hall. She has toured with the Australian String Quartet, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Youth Orchestra, and the Staatskapelle Weimar. In 2022, she was an AYO Fellow with both the Melbourne and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, and an Emerging Artist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and has since toured nationally with both the ACO and ACO Collective. In 2024, she was an academist with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and from 2025, she is a substitute with the Berlin Philharmonic. She performs on a c.1780 Joseph Hill cello kindly on loan from an Australian collection

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Guy Noble is well-known to Australian audiences as a conductor, host, pianist, writer and broadcaster. Guy first played piano with AYO on the 1984 tour to Europe and the UK, culminating in a performance of Stravinsky’s Petrouchka at the BBC Proms. 

He has conducted all the major orchestras in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Malaysia, in repertoire from classical and opera to tours with Harry Connick Jr and Randy Newman. He was an announcer on BBC Radio 3 and hosted Breakfast on ABC Classic from 1999-2001. He hosted and conducted the Queensland Symphony’s Music on Sunday series for 18 years, Adelaide’s Classics Unwrapped series for 5 years and Great Opera Hits with Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House for 10 years and 400 performances. He wrote The Classical Music Explorer for ABC Books, two volumes of Word of The Day for Penguin Books and has had his own column in Limelight Magazine for over 15 years.

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The Orava Quartet has been hailed by Limelight magazine as “the most exciting young quartet on the block” and predicted by The Australian to become “one of Australia’s proudest cultural exports.” Known for their genuinely thrilling performances, the Quartet – brothers Daniel and Karol Kowalik (violin and cello), violinist David Dalseno and violist Thomas Chawner – have been bringing their unique sound and breathtaking intensity to both the classics, and lesser-known jewels of the string quartet canon since 2011. Orava Quartet also regularly performs new works by contemporary and Australian composers including Elena Kats-Chernin, Paul Dean, Ross Edwards, and more.

Selected by Deutsche Grammophon for its historic, first Australian recording release in 2018, received with widespread critical acclaim, Orava Quartet has performed throughout North America, the UAE, and Asia, as well as playing for Queen Sofia of Spain and Pope Benedict XVI. As graduate Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado (USA), they worked closely with the world-renowned Takács Quartet from 2012-2014, and toured in the US including at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. The Quartet made their debut at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall for VIVID Festival with Sufjan Stevens and won major awards at the 2013 Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition, including the Musica Viva Australia Tony Berg Award for ‘Most Outstanding Australian Ensemble’.

Orava Quartet has held residencies at Canada’s Banff Arts Centre, and Australia’s Bundanon Trust. Since returning to Australia as Quartet-in-Residence with Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra in 2014, the Orava Quartet has performed for New Zealand Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music and Huntington Estate Music Festival; Melbourne Festival and BBC Proms Melbourne (for which they were named one of the ‘2016 Arts Highlights of the Year’ by arts luminary, Robyn Archer); Queensland Music Festival, Melbourne Festival (where they were again one of the ‘Top 10 Picks’ of the Festival, in the Herald Sun); Canberra International Music Festival, for Sydney Opera House’ Utzon Music Series, Melbourne Recital Centre, and Musica Viva Australia.

Touring to Canada in 2019, most recent engagements include Canberra International Music Festival, the North Australian Festival of Arts, Tasmanian Chamber Music Festival, Sunshine Coast Chamber Music Festival; concerts at UKARIA Cultural Centre, Melbourne Recital Centre, City Recital Hall (Sydney), and at HOTA Gold Coast with guitarist Karin Schaupp. In 2022 the Quartet also gave the world premiere of a new string quartet by Elena Kats-Chernin, and began a three-year residency with Bangalow Music Festival (NSW).

In 2023, Orava Quartet continues in its ninth year as ‘Quartet-in-Residence’ with Camerata, and in a similar ‘in-residence’ role at Bangalow Music Festival and Orange Chamber Music Festival. Highlights include an invited return tour to Canada to festivals in Québec and Ottawa, and the highly anticipated release of their second album for UMA/Deutsche Grammophon Australia, ‘Orawa’. They return to Tasmanian Chamber Music Festival, Orange and Blackheath Chamber Music Festivals (NSW), and perform for Sydney Mozart Society, Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, among others.

Orava Quartet is grateful for the support of private sponsors through the Australian Cultural Fund thanks to Cultural Partnerships Australia; Universal Music Australia, the University of Colorado, Australia Council for the Arts, Australian Music Foundation, Ian Potter Cultural Trust Dame Joan Sutherland Fund, PPCA Performers’ Trust Foundation, Ernest Llewellyn Scholarship and Ars Musica Australis. Orava Quartet proudly plays on Larsen Strings.

According to Mathisha Panagoda (AYO cellist 2004-2014), law and music are complementary fields. ‘Law requires many skills I attribute to my AYO training – e.g. patience, analysis and hard work’. A lawyer with Caroll & O’Dea Lawyers and casual cellist with the Sydney Symphony, Mathisha’s achievements include recipient of two Banff residencies and founder of the Sydney Camerata.

Robert Smith is a graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, having studied under renowned Australian violinist Michele Walsh. During his studies, Robert received both musical and academic awards, including the Richard Pollett Memorial Award, the Ronald Clifford Davis Prize, the Vada Jefferies Bach Prize, the Basil Jones Sonata Prize and the Griffith Future Fund Scholarship. An avid orchestral musician, he has participated in the Australian Youth Orchestra as Concertmaster and Associate Concertmaster in various programs since 2019. After graduating, Robert won a first violin position with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra before accepting a first violin contract with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Robert has also enjoyed performing with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Southern Cross Soloists, Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra, Omega Ensemble and Ensemble Q.

The Concertmaster Chair is generously supported by Ian & Cass George. 

Robert Smith was the 2021 recipient of the Richard Pollett Memorial Award. 

Recently appointed as the Artistic Director of the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, violinist Sophie Rowell has had an extensive performing career as a soloist, chamber musician and principal orchestral violinist both in Australia and abroad most recently as the co-concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

After winning the ABC Young Performer’s Award in 2000, Sophie founded the Tankstream Quartet which won string quartet competitions in Cremona and Osaka.

Having studied in Germany with the Alban Berg Quartet the quartet moved back to Australia in 2006 when they were appointed as the Australian String Quartet. During the six seasons of their tenure, the ASQ performed and recorded at chamber music festivals all over the world.

Sophie has played in principal violin positions with orchestras including the Scottish and Mahler Chamber Orchestras, and the Vancouver, Sydney, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.

Sophie studied with Beryl Kimber in her hometown of Adelaide, then with Alice Waten in Sydney. She is the Head of Chamber Music (Strings) at the Australian National Academy of Music.

In 2013, Elizabeth was the Music Director of Australian Youth Orchestra’s National Music Camp, where she programmed a series of eight fantastic summer concerts. At the time, she gave an interview to AYO:

Alumni interview

Flute

AYO National Music Camp: 1952-57

Playing in the orchestra for Broadway musical Camelot – starring Richard Burton and Julie Andrews – increased flautist John Wion’s literary consumption: ‘I memorised the score, so I would put a book on my music stand in front of the sheet music. In between playing, I read War and Peace and other classic novels.’

John’s love for orchestral playing began with AYO’s 1952 National Music Camp: ‘I waited for the downbeat from conductor John Bishop. Suddenly life opened for me; this beautiful sound – all-encompassing, vibrating. No other experience in my life has been like it.’

Following his attendance at two more National Music Camps and study at the Conservatorium, John played principal flute for the visiting New York City Ballet. This in turn led to him to New York City where, after serious study for a year during which he ran elevators and delivered packages at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, he got a big break subbing for a week with the New York Philharmonic.

John’s amazing performance and teaching career from 1956-2007 included the New York City Ballet, New York City Opera (where Turandot once crashed through the scenery during a dress rehearsal), and founding member of Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony, plus Professor of Flute at the Hartt School.

John has drawn on drew on this experience to publish a nine-volume series of opera excerpt books to help flautists prepare for auditions and performances. His editions and publications have been winners in the National Flute Association’s Newly Published Music Competition. He was president of the National Flute Association in 1985 and was honoured by that organisation with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

His memoir Wood, Silver and Gold – A Flautist’s Life has been published by Lulu Press.