Festival Artists
Artist Roland Peelman AM
“His encyclopaedic understanding of performing and visual arts and his theatrical instinct place him in constant demand as a musician of flair and imagination.” – Antony Jeffrey, Many Faces of Inspiration.
Born in Belgium, Roland Peelman has been active in Australia over 30 years as a conductor, pianist, artistic director and mentor to composers, singers and musicians alike. He has established a reputation as one of Australia’s most innovative musical directors, awarded with numerous accolades. On the sidelines, Roland remained active as a pianist, putting his fingers in the service of social activism, in particular Human Rights.
Artist Erkki Veltheim - composer/performer
Erkki Veltheim is an Australian/Finnish composer and performer. His practice spans noise, audio-visual installation, improvisation, notated music, electro-acoustic composition, pop arrangements and cross-disciplinary performance. Erkki has been commissioned by the Adelaide Festival, Vivid Festival, Australian Art Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Musica nova Helsink and composed the orchestral works for celebrated Australian indigenous musician Gurrumul’s posthumous album Djarimirri.
Photo by Aaron Chua
Artist Konstantin Shamray - piano
Described as an exhilarating performer with faultless technique and fearless command of the piano, Australian-based pianist Konstantin Shamray enjoys performing on an international level with the world’s leading orchestras and concert presenters.
In 2008, Konstantin burst onto the concert scene when he won First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. He is the first and only competitor to date in the 40 years of the competition to win both First and People’s Choice Prizes, in addition to six other prizes. He then went on to win First Prize at the 2011 Klavier Olympiade in Bad Kissingen, Germany, and he was awarded the festival’s coveted Luitpold Prize for “outstanding musical achievements”.
Artist Flynn & Humphrey
Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey are Australian artists who create unexpected situations for listening. They have a long-term highly awarded collaborative practice. Their work is driven by a curiosity about listening in human and non-human ecologies and seeks to evolve and engage with new processes and audiences through public and participative interventions. They work with emerging technologies, cultural groups, sites, and experts across practice and ensemble-made processes. Their current creative obsessions include acoustics of the dark, the sound of existential risk, and ecological and cultural impacts of practice. Maddie and Tim are based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.
Maddie and Tim’s works have been presented by major festivals and contemporary art spaces, including Setouchi Triennale and Kinosaki Arts Centre (Japan); Busan Sea Art Biennale, Ansan Arts Festival, and Seoul Street Arts Festival (Republic of Korea); Brighton Festival and Science Gallery London (UK); Sonica Festival ; Edinburgh Festival and Counterflows Festival (Scotland); ANTI Festival and Oulu Capital of Culture (Finland); Prague Quadrennial (Czech Republic); Theatre der Welt (Germany); Ars Electronica (Austria); Melbourne Festival, Perth Festival, Sydney Festival, MONA FOMA, ACCA, ArtsHouse, Melbourne Recital Centre, Substation, Sydney Opera House, Bundanon, and Science Gallery Melbourne (Australia). Their awards include the national Australia Council Experimental Arts Award, APRA-AMCOS awards for Experimental Music, GreenRoom Awards for Sound and Hybrid Arts, Melbourne Festival award and an Honourable Mention Ars Electronica.
Photo credit – Jody Haines
Artist Shock Lines
Shock Lines is composed of glass artist Caitlin Dubler, sound artist & cellist Natasha Dubler and percussionist Niki Johnson.
Shock Lines brings three distinctive understandings of material, transformation and gesture into dialogue through each artist’s respective craft. By mutually challenging the strict conventions of each individual practice the collaboration opens new avenues for play across disciplinary forms.
Artist Helen Svoboda - double bass
Helen Svoboda is a Finnish/Australian award-winning double bassist, vocalist and composer. “A musician who absolutely defies categorisation” (Andrew Ford – The Music Show, ABC), her work explores the melodic potential of the double bass, weaving extended techniques and overtones with vocal tessitura to explore themes of sonic unity amidst abstract song-writing forms.
Artist Erwan Keravec - highland bagpiper, composer and improviser
Artist Melbourne Chamber Orchestra
Directed by celebrated Australian violinist and concertmaster Sophie Rowell, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra is Victoria’s preeminent professional chamber orchestra. In more than 50 performances each season, the orchestra brings leading Australian musicians together in inspiring programs of uncompromising artistic quality, finesse, and passion.
The MCO’s mainstage season is presented at Melbourne Recital Centre and broadcast on ABC Classic and 3MBS FM. The ensemble also hosts A Feast of Music, an annual spring chamber music festival in Daylesford, as well as a range of chamber programs that tour extensively across Victoria and beyond.
Photo credit – Jessica Trump
Artist David Greco - baritone
“One of the foremost singers of his generation” (Limelight 2022), ARIA Award-nominated baritone David Greco has sung on some of the finest stages across Europe and appeared in celebrated opera festivals including Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
An acclaimed interpreter of oratorio and concert work, he appears regularly with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Haydn Ensemble and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He has become closely associated with Britten’s War Requiem, making his debut in this work with West Australian Symphony Orchestra in 2022, and again in 2023 with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, David appeared as soloist in Verdi’s Requiem in the Sydney Opera House with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs.
Artist Ellery String Quartet
The Ellery String Quartet is a dynamic group of musicians, formed at the end of 2021 and based on Ngunnawal/Ngambri land (Canberra). With their “youthful exuberance and fearless approach” (Canberra CityNews), they aim to push the boundaries of the classical string quartet through programs of contemporary classical and folk music across diverse performance spaces. The quartet have a particular fondness for Scandinavian folk music, and modern works from composers such as Caroline Shaw, Ella Macens and Holly Harrison.
Artist Nicole Smede, multi-disciplinary artist
Nicole Smede is a multidisciplinary artist of Worimi, Irish and colonial descent, living and creating on Wadi Wadi Dharawal Country. A re-connection to ancestry, language and culture ripples through her work in voice, song, sound and poetry, exploring what it means to be ‘of Country’.
A trained mezzo soprano and graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Nicole has performed and recorded repertoire from classical, theatre, rock and contemporary music through to film and other media. Her voice has been heard on Triple J as well as globally on award-winning film scores, and graced the stages of City Recital Hall, Parliament House, MONA FOMA festival to art galleries and venues across Australia.
Artist Oriana Chorale
Founded in 1977, the Oriana Chorale is an auditioned group of professional and amateur musicians who are dedicated to quality performance of a diverse selection of choral music.
Oriana’s mission is enriching the cultural life of Canberra with choral music projects of the highest standard, both a capella and with instrumental accompaniment. The Chorale repertoire ranges from Schütz, Tallis and Byrd, to Rachmaninov, Pärt, Whitacre, and contemporary Australian composers.
Directed by Dan Walker, the Chorale presents three major concerts each year, often with associate artists, and is a regular participant in the Canberra International Music Festival as well as a collaborator of prominent vocal ensembles such as The Song Company and The Tallis Scholars. Members of the community have the opportunity to join the Chorale for its annual choral workshops.
Artist Sonya Lifschitz - piano
Ukrainian-born/Australian-based Sonya Lifschitz is a pianist working across many contexts, with repertoire spanning from 15th century Faenza Codex to works written for her today. She is known for her fiercely imaginative, daring collaborations across film, animation, spoken word, visual and performance art. Described as “a life force of extraordinary density and capacity”, Sonya’s artistry combines bold adventurousness with exceptional musicianship. She is active as a soloist, creative collaborator, artistic director, educator, radio presenter and a passionate arts advocate for which tireless efforts she recently won the 2024 QPAC Excellence in Classical Music Award.
Artist Flinders Quartet
Flinders Quartet (FQ) is instantly recognisable as one of Australia’s most loved chamber music ensembles. A quartet for the 21st century and a highly respected force in Australian chamber music, FQ marks their twenty-fifth anniversary with acknowledged musical skill and maturity.
FQ 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.
Photo credit – Pia Johnson
Artist Kate Neal
Kate Neal is an artist with over 20 years’ experience as a composer, arranger, educator, and collaborator. In 2020/21 Neal premiered Sentiment Logistics with Sal Cooper, a TURA No Borders commission, as well as new works for Golden Gate Brass, Muses Trio and sound design for the RISING featured theatre work The Dispute. A new solo cello work Old Silences (with animation by Sal Cooper) also premiered in Brisbane and was to feature at the 2021 Art Music Awards.
In 2019 Neal premiered The Commuter Variations commissioned by the Melbourne Recital Centre (10th Anniversary), performed by Lisa Moore with animation by Sal Cooper. In 2018 Neal premiered While You Sleep, a 60min ground-breaking work for string quartet and visual media, presented by Arts House, Melbourne. In 2016 she composed Permission to Speak a vocal work in collaboration with theatre maker Tamara Saulwick. Produced and presented by Chamber Made, Permission to Speak achieved critical acclaim, and also showcased at APAM 2018.
In 2017 Neal premiered Never Tilt Your Chair at PICA (Perth Institute of Contemporary Art) with the Sound Collectors, a work for over 200 pieces of cutlery. This involved substantial instrument design and construction. Neal also composed five short bagatelles, Eurus for Arcadia Winds in the Musica Viva Schools program as well as a new work for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, August 2017. In 2015 Neal presented her concert length work Semaphore, which won Instrumental Work of the Year as well as Performance of the Year at the APRA Art music awards, showcased at APAM (Brisbane) and pitched at Classical:Next (Rotterdam). This work showed exceptional courage in documenting ANZAC signalman, and found new ways in integrating and notating physical movement and gesture for both musicians and dancers.
In 2015 Neal was the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship, allowing her to compose six substantial works over two years. In 2013 Neal returned from the US to take a one-year position as Composer in Residence for the Four Winds Festival. From 2009-2013 Neal was a Graduate Fellow at Princeton University in the USA, and from 2007-2009 she was based in the UK. Neal received a NUFFIC scholarship in 1999 and studied with Louis Andriessen and Martijn Padding at the Royal Conservatory in the Netherlands.
Neal currently (2020/21) is a lecturer in Interactive Composition at the VCA, University of Melbourne.
Neal holds a BMus (VCA, Melbourne); BMus/MMus (RC, The Hague); PGDip (non western music, SC, Amsterdam); PGDip (RNCM, Manchester); PhD Graduate Fellow, Princeton University.
“Adrenalin-filled musical adventure a winner” – The Age
“Ravishing piano glissandi and arpeggiated strings” – The Australian
“Complex, rousing stuff, performed with precision” – Australian Arts Review
“Explosion of scintillating colour and intoxicating movement” – Herald Sun
Artist Paavali Jumppanen - piano
In the span of recent seasons, the imaginative and versatile Finnish virtuoso Paavali Jumppanen has established himself as a dynamic musician of seemingly unlimited capability as a solo recitalist, orchestral collaborator, recording artist, artistic director, and frequent performer of contemporary and avant-garde music.
Artist Satu Vänskä - violin
Born to a Finnish family in Japan, violinist Satu Vänskä has developed an international profile through her role as Principal Violin with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, a position that she has held for the past twenty years. In that time Satu has both directed and performed as soloist with the ACO, an ensemble regarded as one of the greatest chamber orchestras in the world, hailed for its striking virtuosity and innovative programming.
Satu’s development of solo violin projects is reflective of her desire to continually evolve as a musician and to courageously embrace new musical challenges. She has a passion for dynamic programming that explores the link between old and new music, alongside presenting boundary-blurring cross-genre collaborations, that resonate with today’s classical music audiences.
Artist Tipi Valve - cello
Timo-Veikko Valve, affectionately known by audiences far and wide as “Tipi”, grew up in Finland, surrounded by a family who are “musically oriented normal people”. Music lessons were a natural part of his upbringing, and at six years old, Tipi was encouraged to pick up the cello after a teacher at the local music school declared with considerable conviction that “he looks just like a cellist!”. To this day, Tipi remains somewhat puzzled about what that statement actually meant. Whatever the subtext, the teacher seems to have been correct.
Artist Kompactus Youth Choir
Kompactus is a youth chamber choir, aimed at developing the skills of talented singers between the ages of eighteen and thirty. Founded in 2008 with countertenor David Yardley as director, The group now performs regularly in Canberra, under the artistic direction of composer and choral conductor, Olivia Swift.
Kompactus maintains a diverse and versatile repertoire, drawn from many time periods and styles stretching as far back as the late medieval through to modern contemporary music. Kompactus has sung at the Canberra International Music Festival, as part of the Flowers of Peace series, at Floriade and many more, as well as regularly performing around our local Canberra.
Photo credit – Jorge Garcia
Artist Olivia Davies - Composer-in-residence
Olivia Bettina Davies (b.1988) is an Australian composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music that spans multiple genres including classical minimalism, experimental and ambient. Davies’ compositions often explore ideas of space, stasis and continuity, resulting in soundworlds that are texturally-driven and nuanced. Davies is the current composer-in-residence with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and recently undertook a Prelude residency at the renowned Peggy Glanville-Hicks House in Sydney. She has been the recipient of a number of awards and scholarships including the Schenberg Music Fellowship in Composition and the prestigious 2022 Art Music Award: Large Ensemble for her piece Stratus (2021), conducted & performed by Asher Fisch and the WA Symphony Orchestra.
photo credit – Hannah Jones
Artist Reuben Tsang - piano
Cairns-born pianist Reuben Tsang is guided by Natasha Vlassenko OAM at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and performs in recitals, chamber ensembles and competitions. He is a 2024 award recipient from Theme and Variations Foundation.
Reuben won First Prize, Best Recital and People’s Choice Award at the 2024 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition. He has performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey and with the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Fritzsch. Reuben was also a semi-finalist and recipient of several prizes including the Nancy Weir Best Australian Pianist Award at the 2023 Sydney International Piano Competition.
Photo credit – Sam Salvador
Artist Jane Sheldon - soprano and composer
Jane Sheldon is a soprano and composer who has established an international reputation for highly specialised, groundbreaking art music for voice. Jane’s compositional output includes electronic music, chamber music, opera installations, works for dance companies and large-scale sound installations for museums. Described as “riveting” (New York Times) and “gripping” (Limelight Magazine), Jane’s compositions focus on the experience of altered or transformative states. Her latest album is I am a tree, I am a mouth (“conceptually brilliant… a vocal and compositional triumph, beautifully realised with splendid restraint” – Limelight Magazine). The release was listed in the New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of 2022. Her next album, Flowermuscle, is due out late 2024.
Artist Australian Haydn Ensemble - String Quartet
The Australian Haydn Ensemble, (AHE) was founded in 2012 by Artistic Director and Principal Violinist Skye McIntosh and is now in its twelfth year. AHE has quickly established itself as one of Australia’s leading period-instrument groups, specialising in the repertoire of the late Baroque and early Classical eras. It takes its name from the great Joseph Haydn, a leading composer of the late 18th century.
Artist Mark Atkins - yidaki (didgeridoo)
Acknowledged as one of Australia’s finest Yidaki (didgeridoo) players, Mark Atkins is also recognised internationally for his collaborative projects with some of the world’s leading composers and musicians. A descendant of Western Australia’s Yamitji people, as well as of Irish/Australian heritage, Mark is known not only for his masterly playing, but also as a storyteller, composer, percussionist, visual artist and instrument maker. Mark has performed alongside and composed with artists such as Led Zeppelin, JimmyPage and Robert Plant, Sinead O’Connor, Philip Glass, Donald Lunney, Ornette Coleman, Peter Sculthorpe, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Gondwana, Jenny Morris, John Williamson, James Morrison, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO). He is a founding member of Black Arm Band.
Photo by Kristian Gehradte
Artist Niki Johnson, percussionist-composer
Niki Johnson is a percussionist and composer-performer whose musical practice incorporates contemporary classical repertoire, improvisation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and performance art. She is a current PhD Candidate at Monash University, where her research explores percussionists’ collaborations with sculptors and designers, and the process of co-creating, and composing for new sculptural instruments. Her main research project is Shock Lines, a collaboration involving Niki as percussionist-composer, glass artist Caitlin Dubler, and sound designer Natasha Dubler. Niki also works with clarinettist and composer Solomon Frank in the experimental music and theatre duo Throat Pleats. This collaboration explores shifting animalistic power dynamics, balloons, hoses, and vacuum cleaners.
Artist Lyle Chan - composer
Composer Lyle Chan is known for his socially-conscious works combining powerful emotional impact and intellectual rigour. His most personal and confronting work is his 90-minute String Quartet, a memoir of his years as an AIDS activist in the 1990s. It was hailed by American composer John Corigliano as “a serious and deeply felt work of art born out of a seemingly endless plague.”
He was awarded the Orchestral Work of the Year prize in Australia’s Art Music Awards for his orchestral song cycle My Dear Benjamin, which Chan wrote upon meeting a 95-year old Wulff Scherchen living in Australia and discovering he was the little-known war-time love interest of composer Benjamin Britten.
Artist Sally Walker - flute
With a repertoire ranging from Early Music to works composed especially for her, most notably Elena Kats-Chernin’s “Night and Now” Concerto, performer, academic and music educator Dr Sally Walker has toured internationally with the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras, was Principal Flute of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss and the Omega Ensemble, and has performed as Guest Principal Flute with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Kammerakademie Potsdam. She has performed on historical instruments with Salut! Baroque and the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra and has a long-standing association as Guest Principal Flautist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, with whom she has played modern, baroque and classical flutes, recorders and piccolo.
Artist Damian Barbeler - composer
Damian Barbeler is an award-winning composer and multimedia artist recognised for his inventive and multifaceted nature-inspired creations. His visually-influenced style, derived from the practice of composing during field trips in the bush, brings a raw and unvarnished honesty to the colours and textures of the Australian landscape: from oppressive harshness to intoxicating beauty and everything in between. Barbeler lectures in Composition and Music Technology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.
Artist Tim Gruchy - media artist
Tim Gruchy’s extensive career spans the exploration and composition of immersive and interactive multimedia through installation, music and performance, whilst redefining its role and challenging the delineations between cultural sectors. He has exhibited multimedia works, photography, video, music and performance since the early 1980s as well as his larger expressions in the public art arenas. His works are held in private, corporate and museum collections.
Artist Rubiks Collective
“Rubiks Collective achieves the impossible. The vocal quartet is living, breathing proof that new compositions can be invigorating and inspiring, not merely intellectually niche.” – Sydney Morning Herald
Rubiks is one of Melbourne’s most dynamic contemporary art music ensembles, reimagining classical music for the modern era. Directed by Tamara Kohler (flutes) and Kaylie Melville (percussion), Rubiks showcases bold cross-art collaborations, shares untold stories and champions gender equity in the arts . Since debuting in 2015, Rubiks has been hailed as “a formidable contribution to Australia’s growing community of contemporary music makers” (Partial Durations) and commended for their “incredibly personal, strangely spiritual and ultimately deeply touching” performances (Limelight).
Rubiks’ appearance at the 2025 Festival is supported by Peter Wise.
2025 FESTIVAL See what shows your favourite artists will be performing in.
Over five full days, join us for a musical adventure with new works to timeless classics, a boundless collection of thought-provoking acts, featuring a stunning line up of Australian and international artists.