Australian Youth Orchestra

Kerem Hasan is regarded as one of the most exciting young British conductors. Winning the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award in the summer of 2017 laid the foundation for his flourishing international career. From September 2019 to June 2023, he served as Chief Conductor of the Tiroler Symphonieorchester in Innsbruck.

Highlights of the 2024/2025 season include guest engagements with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, and Staatsorchester Stuttgart. He will make his debuts with the Residentie Orkest, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, and Izmir State Symphony Orchestra. Returning invitations will take him to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Kymi Sinfonietta, PHION Orkest, and Tonkünstler-Orchester. In North America, he will make his debut with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec in March 2025. Additionally, he leads a revival of Mozart’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ at the Welsh National Opera. The exchange and work with young musicians are particularly important to him, shown this season through his projects with the Australian Youth Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Renowned for her ‘superb talent’ (The Australian) and ‘searing, poetic tone’ (The Guardian), Emily Sun’s captivating performances have earned her international acclaim. She has won prestigious awards such as the Royal Overseas League Competition (UK) and the ABC Young Performers Award (Australia). Emily has also performed with leading conductors across Europe, the UK, and Asia, including Vasily Petrenko and Tan Dun.

In 2024, Emily debuted with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Johannesburg Philharmonic and returned to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for their Kaddish Holocaust Memorial concert. As Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Association, she delivered acclaimed performances with conductors Andrew Litton and Shiyeon Siung following the world premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Fantasie im Wintergarten with conductor Benjamin Northey.

Other recent concerto highlights include performances with the Sydney, Melbourne, and West Australian Symphony Orchestras under conductors Asher Fisch, Mark Wigglesworth, and Jaime Martín. Emily’s next album, featuring concertos by Korngold and Kats-Chernin, is set for release in 2025.

Emily is a Violin Professor at the Royal College of Music, London, and performs on a 1753 G.B. Guadagnini violin, generously loaned to her by the UKARIA Cultural Trust.

​

One of Australia’s foremost contemporary composers, Elena Kats-Chernin’s vibrant and distinctive music across all genres has reached millions worldwide, featuring at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, 2003 Rugby World Cup and 2018 Commonwealth Games. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, she has received numerous prizes including Helpmann, Limelight, Sounds Australian and Sydney Theatre Awards, the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award and the 2022 Australian Women in Music Award (AWMA) for ‘Artistic Excellence’. Oscar-winning director Adam Elliott’s full-length Claymation film, “Memoir of a Snail”, with music by Kats-Chernin, won the top Cristal award for ‘Best Feature Film’ at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival and opened the Melbourne International Film Festival in August the same year. ‘Eliza Aria’ from ballet Wild Swans (choreographer Meryl Tankard) was made famous by British bank Lloyds TSB, and her ‘Sarenka’ double concerto premiered by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was nominated for ‘Work of the Year’ in the 2024 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards. 

Kats-Chernin writes for ballet, opera, theatre, television and the concert hall, with her music performed by all major orchestras in Australia, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Brandenburg Orchestra and Australian World Orchestra; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerorchester Berlin, City of London Sinfonia, BBC Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony and Luxembourg Philharmonie, as well as the opera houses of Antwerp, Stuttgart, and Berlin, and in festivals across the USA, Europe, and Australasia. She has collaborated with well-known artists such as Marin Alsop, Avi Avital, Michael Collins, Mahan Esfahani, Shobana Jeyasingh, Richard Tognetti, William Yang, Simone Young, and many more.