Major boost for AYO Momentum Leaders program to empower emerging cultural leaders
Home / Magazine / Major boost for AYO Momentum Leaders program to empower emerging cultural leaders
The Australian Youth Orchestra’s innovative Momentum Leaders program has received a significant boost, with three-year funding from The Ian Potter Foundation enabling its expansion into a sector-responsive vocational training initiative.
Designed to equip emerging creatives with the skills for sustainable, versatile careers, Momentum Leaders offers immersive artistic leadership and professional development opportunities that go beyond traditional music training.
An initiative of AYO, Momentum Leaders connects emerging creatives in an immersive artistic leadership and professional skills training project that encourages participants to extend their creative practice beyond their specialist artform. Launched in February 2025, the pilot program was a bold artform collaboration between AYO musicians and alumni of the National Institute of Dramatic Art.
The six-month pilot aimed to unite exceptional instrumentalists, composers, writers, and directors, equipping them with the skills needed for a 21st-century artistic career: artistic mastery, leadership, cultural awareness, and business acumen.
“Following the success of the AYO Momentum program, this three-year support from The Ian Potter Foundation will ensure that we can design and deliver an innovative, sector-responsive vocational training program that complements our existing AYO Momentum Ensemble,” said AYO CEO Kimbali Harding.
AYO’s Momentum program is an intensive, ensemble-based performance initiative offered by invitation to distinguished AYO alumni who are undertaking tertiary or postgraduate-level study. Momentum Leaders builds on this foundation, offering participants not only unique performance opportunities but also the chance to develop teaching skills, access professional development, and grow the capabilities necessary for a multifaceted artistic career.
Momentum Leaders 2025 | Behind the Scenes
The program responds directly to the AYO Strategic Plan 2024–29 by fostering emerging creatives’ confidence and competence in developing their artistic vision and practice. It also supports participants in building the networks and complementary skills needed to thrive in real-time, real-world collaborations.
Aligned with international models of best practice, Momentum Leaders supports the National Cultural Policy – Revive, particularly the pillar of Centrality of the Artist. By offering vocational pathways and collaborative opportunities, the program empowers participants to build long-term, sustainable careers in the arts.
About The Ian Potter Foundation
The Ian Potter Foundation is one of Australia’s major philanthropic foundations. The Foundation makes grants nationally to support charitable organisations working to benefit the community across a wide range of sectors including the arts, medical research, public health research, early childhood development, community wellbeing and environmental science. The Ian Potter Foundation aims to support and promote a fair, healthy, sustainable and vibrant Australia.
“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.
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.
Elliott is an emerging young artist based in Brisbane, as an active performer, multi-instrumentalist and teacher. He has performed with AYO in Momentum Ensemble and attended the 2019 International Tour.
For undergraduate studies in violin at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, Elliott studied with pedagogue Elizabeth Morgan AM and graduated with First Class Honours, the Maurice Mears Memorial Prize, and a University Medal in recognition of outstanding achievement for performing and academia. Elliott continued his performance training with Dr Robin Wilson at the Australian National Academy of Music, with its highly selective training program prioritising hands-on, professional-level performance. He also recently branched out to study a Master of Music Therapy at the University of Melbourne, a career path where insights gained from music-making are applied to a broad range of contexts such as aged care, learning development and clinical settings.
Elliott is excited about promoting engaging performance of diverse music, playing violin with ensembles around Brisbane and interstate. In his spare time, you may find Elliott jogging the streets of Brisbane’s southside or practicing music therapy on the family’s long-suffering bichoodle.
Kit Millais is a low brass performer, band leader and educator from Melbourne, Australia. He seeks to bring light-heartedness, entertainment, and joy to music-making at every level. As a performer, Kit finds himself called upon to cover a myriad of styles and roles. He has performed with Momentum Ensemble and Momentum Leaders.
He recently held the trombone/euphonium position for the 2023 Melbourne production of Mary Poppins and regularly plays bass trombone with the Jazzlab Orcheztra. This includes being recorded on the Jazzlab Orcheztra’s debut album ‘Cloud Gazing’ and their upcoming live album ‘Hyperion’. He has led the Hot Socks Big Band as well as taking part in the Australian National Jazz Orchestra Youth Big Band, and the ARTS8 Collective (a project based interdisciplinary art ensemble).
Additionally, he continues to freelance in ensembles for the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, Heidelberg Choral Society, Melbourne Bach Choir, and the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet Orchestra.
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.
Flautist Jessica Scott is a versatile performer, specialising in orchestral, contemporary, improvised and experimental performance. She has been a member of Momentum Ensemble in both 2023 and 2025.
A recent graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London (RAM) and Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM), she has been the recipient of multiple prizes throughout her career, including The Peter Richardson Memorial Prize (2018), NSW Flute Society Open Championship (2018), Sydney Youth Orchestra’s Principal Chair Scholarship (2018-2019), the Sydney Conservatorium Vice-Chancellor’s Global Mobility scholarship (2019), the Jean Martin-Louie Jean Mercer Performing Arts Education Grant (2020), and the Australian Music Foundation Awards (2021). Following her master’s degree in 2022 at RAM, Jessica stayed on to complete a one-year Open Academy Fellowship in community engagement through improvisation, working with community-based organisations across London.
Jessica was a core and founding member of contemporary music group Ensemble Muse. As a contemporary musician, Jessica has performed at the Siteworks Festival and Backstage Music Series in NSW, Australia, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, and the soundSCAPE online festival. Additional highlights as a contemporary performer have included recording sessions with Amazon Studios for their film La Cabeza de Joaquín Murrieta and Mount Kimbie for their recent album The Sunset Violent, and world premieres of works for solo flute/small ensemble by over twenty Australian and international composers. Recent projects have included the premiere of Rhys Little’s Piccolo Concerto, ‘Flight’ in 2024, Mimi’s Symphony by George Ellis and Justine Clarke on flute at the Opera House (2025 season), and performing at the 2nd Iranian Music Festival as part of chamber ensemble FolkXperimental in 2024. As an orchestral musician she has performed with the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, The Orchestra Project, Australian Indian Orchestra, Voces Caelestium and The Modést Orchestra.
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