Sydney Conservatorium of Music

Anthony performs on a wide variety of historical keyboard instruments from the eighteenth century including the harpsichord, organ, fortepiano and clavichord. He earned his PhD at the University of Sydney in the study of historical performance practices. Building an awareness of music's cultural context is central to his attitude towards music making.

While studying harpsichord and fortepiano at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, he was employed with chamber groups and orchestras in The Netherlands, France, U.K. and the United States. At home, Anthony enjoys performing with the Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and Hobart Symphony Orchestras as well as the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.

Currently, Anthony holds a lecturing position at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where he teaches in both musicology and historical performance. In teaching, he focuses on clarifying the connection between theory and practice to provide students with the fundamental tools to refine their performance skills.

Dr Damian Barbeler is an award-winning composer, multimedia and interactive sound sculpture artist specialising in fully integrated wholistic music-based multimedia works for stage or installation. He is recognised for his unique visually inspired style, especially his lush, emotional creations inspired by textures and patterns in nature. He regularly collaborates with colleagues from diverse fields including film, architecture, software design, media arts, dance and more. He frequently makes multi-art works incorporating film, theatrical and sculptural elements with music.

His uncategorisable often surrealist work often emphasises tactile experiences of physical places especially the natural landscape, for example his current project Duet for One with pianist Sonya Lifschitz exploring our estranged relationship with the natural landscape.

Damian's creations have featured in concert halls and festivals around Australia. In 2024 Barbeler's choral work Charlotte, on a text by Judith Crispin, was premiered by Kings College Cambridge Choir on national tour for Musica Viva Australia. He has directed independent projects for, and is Creative Producer for Backstage Music. For nearly a decade he Directed projects with local communities in Far North Qld and the Torres Strait Islands for Qld Music Festival.

Other major works include, Scenes from the Bundian Way (2022) for Canberra International Music Festival, Piece for Violin and Ball of Wool (2018), for violin and ritual theatre for Melbourne Recital Hall, Metropolis Festival; The Sound Bubble installation in Vivid 2016 (with John Taylor and Anna McMichael), and MOFO Festival Launceston (2018); The Music Orchard (with Tim Jetis, Ciaran Frame and John Taylor) Vivid 2017; Bruce's Shed, for Big hArt for the 2015 Tasmanian International Arts Festival; Bright Birds (2012) and Visiting Eucalyptus (2018, with Tim Jetis) for Four Winds Festival.

Barbeler holds a PhD in Composition from the University of Sydney, and lectures in composition and digital music at University of Sydney, Sydney Conservatorium, and creative performance practice at University of NSW.

Simon Barker (PhD) is a lecturer in Drum Set and Rhythm Awareness at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In addition to his numerous solo performances and recordings, Simon co-leads several internationally recognized collaborative ensembles including Trace Sphere, Chiri, Showa 44, and Band of Five Names. Simon also performs with many of Australia's most established ensembles including the Matt McMahon trio, the Phil Slater Quartet, and several groups led by Scott Tinkler. Recent international collaborations include performances at KBS Art Hall, Seoul, (with Jo Jonghun and Lim Mijeong), Yeowoorak Festival, Korea, (with Kim Jeong Hee), Jazztopad, Poland (duet with Bae il Dong), peformances with Jen Shyu (USA). in 2015, Simon published "Korea and the Western Drumset" (Ashgate, London).

Coil and Road (solo drumming performance 2019)

Growing up in Sydney, Andrew studied bassoon with Marion Stanley and John Cran while pursuing degrees of Economics and Law at Macquarie University. Upon graduation he accepted a position with chartered accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick and worked for several years before receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Trust Scholarship and moving to Europe to pursue study of the bassoon in a full time capacity. Lessons with William Waterhouse in London and at the Conservatoire de Geneve with Kim Walker and Roger Birnstingle helped Andrew to win the bassoon section of the Swiss International Performance Competition in Riddes. Andrew subsequently completed studies at Indiana University in the United States, receiving a Performer Diploma. He was also awarded the "Performer Certificate", the highest performance prize offered by the School of Music.

Returning to Australia in 1995, Andrew won a position with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, where he played full time for 3 years. During this period he was a founding member of the [new] Adelaide Wind Quintet, a finalist in the ABC Young Performers Awards and appeared as soloist with the Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.

Andrew was appointed to the distinguished faculty of Indiana University School of Music in 1998 where he taught bassoon and coordinated chamber music. He returned to Australia in 2002 to take up the position of Lecturer of Bassoon and Chair of Woodwind at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Since that time Andrew has been regular principal bassoon with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australia Ensemble and a founding member of the New Sydney Wind Quintet. He has also performed regularly as principal with the Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras and the Queensland Orchestra. Andrew is currently Senior Lecturer of Bassoon and Coordinator of Chamber Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

PhD MBA FHEA GradCertCISI GradCertEdStud BMus(Hons)

Dr Steve Barry is a multi-award winning pianist, Hammond organist, composer and improviser, and the Program Leader for Jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Born & raised in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland and now for many years living and creating on Gadigal land, Barry works across the music industry as a performer, accompanist, educator and consultant.

Barry's creative output moves fluidly across the jazz, contemporary classical and improvised music worlds. His 2023 release In The Waves - featuring drummer Eric Harland and saxophonist Will Vinson (USA) - received 4.5 stars in the Weekend Australian and was described by the Sydney Morning Herald as "...the finest installment yet of the pianist's bristling musical intelligence, rhythmic mutability, melodic flair and compositional gifts." Current projects include an edited book on Australasian jazz education, practice and industry, and bodies of work for quartet, solo piano, Hammond organ, and a 10-piece cross-genre ensemble.

Barry has worked extensively in Japan for over a decade, performing and recording with bassist Yoshio Suzuki - nephew of acclaimed educator Shinichi Suzuki and former member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. A 2017 grant from the Australia Council for the Arts supported a week-long residency and immersive audio-video recording in the Joganji Buddhist temple in Osaka, in a pioneering collaboration with the renowned koto player and experimental improviser Michiyo Yagi and an ensemble of Australian and Japanese musicians, under the moniker Orbiturtle.

In recent years Barry's work has extended to Vietnam, leading an ensemble of Conservatorium jazz students on a week-long residency at the Vietnam National Academy of Music and and performance tour of Hanoi in 2022 and 2023. In 2023, the visit culminated in a sold-out collaborative performance in the 800-seat Grand Concert Hall at the Academy, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Australia-Vietnam diplomatic relations and the 10th anniversary of the Academy's jazz department, and broadcast on Vietnam's largest TV network, VTV1.

Barry's 2018 release Blueprints & Vignettes received a 4-star review in the Sydney Morning Herald and was long-listed for the 14th annual Australian Music Prize. His 2018 album of compostions and improvisations for solo piano, Hatch, reached #9 on the Radio New Zealand Classical Music charts.

Barry has performed and recorded with Eric Harland, Will Vinson, Jay Rodriguez, Arun Luthra, Mimi Jones, Camille Thurman, John Hollenbeck, Theo Bleckmann, George Coleman Jr. (USA) and a long list of leading Australasian improviers, including Judy Bailey, Sean Wayland, Dale Barlow, Andrew Gander and Jamie Oehlers.

As a chamber composer Barry's works have been premiered by Ensemble Offspring and pianists Daniel Rojas, Natalia Ricci and Stephanie McCallum.

I am a musicologist, specialising in the study of Australian First Nations musics, immigrant musics and the digital humanities (particularly archiving and repatriation of ethnographic field recordings as a site of interaction between researchers and cultural heritage communities). I have studied community music practices through fieldwork in Australia, Italy and the Philippines. Themes of my research include analysis of musical action in place, the language of song, and the aesthetics of cross-cultural musical practice. I also publish on theoretical issues, including analysis of non-Western music, and research implications of digital technologies.

Since its inception, I have conceived, directed, and since my retirement in 2020 helped develop the cross-institutional research infrastructure facility PARADISEC (the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures), whose Sydney arm is since 2013 based at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. I am an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). In 2019 I was Leverhulme Visiting Professor at SOAS, University of London. In 2023 I was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in recognition of my service to cultural heritage archiving. In 2024 I was awarded the Sir Bernard Heinze Award for service to Music in Australia.

At the University of Sydney, I am a member of the multidisciplinary centres the Charles Perkins Centre and the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre.

Roger Benedict’s career has encompassed work as a conductor, soloist, orchestral player, chamber musician and teacher. From 1991 -2000 principal viola in the Philharmonia Orchestra, London, and following that the same position in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, since 2002 Roger has been Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony’s acclaimed Fellowship Program. At the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he is an Associate Professor, Roger is Chief Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and also heads the viola department. From 1997 – 2002 he held a teaching position at the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK,and he gives masterclasses throughout Europe and Asia.

A frequent guest conductor with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Roger has conducted the orchestra in subscription concerts at the Sydney Opera House, at City Recital Hall and on tour. He regularly conducts the Sydney Symphony Fellowship Orchestra, including concerts at the Sydney Opera House and in regional centres. He also appears as a conductor with other orchestras in Australasia such as the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and in the UK with the Southbank Sinfonia.A devoted orchestral trainer, he has coached the European Union Youth Orchestra since 2000, and is a frequent conductor of Australian Youth Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra (UK) programs.

Roger has enjoyed considerable success as a solo viola player. As a viola soloist he has appeared with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Ulster Orchestra in the UK as well as the Sydney Symphony, Canberra Symphony, New Zealand Symphony and the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan). With the Sydney Symphony alone he has performed as a soloist over twenty times.

Roger Benedict’s recital CD Volupté (with pianist Timothy Young) of rare works by Charles Koechlin and Joseph Jongen, released by Melba Recordings in 2010, was greeted with considerable critical acclaim and selected as one of the ten best recordings of 2010 by www.theclassicalreview.com. His recording of Vaughan Williams’ Flos Campi with the Sydney Symphony was released by the same label in 2011, and a disc of music by Hans Gál and Ernst Krenek (Voices in the Wilderness) in 2014. His latest recording, A Winter’s Tale, featuring music by Schubert and Schumann with pianist Simon Tedeschi, was released in 2018 on the Universal/ABC Classics label.

Roger has gained admiration for his adventurous and imaginative programming, and also for his dedication to outreach and community activity – for example through presenting concerts and workshops in schools, prisons and corporate settings. Equally passionate about using music to raise awareness and support for charitable causes, Roger has conceived and conductedseveral highly successful fundraising concertswith the ensemble he founded, Orchestra for Life. These include the Concert for Life series that since 2015 has raised significant sums for suicide prevention and Indigenous mental health charities.

Roger is active as a writer, editor and arranger; recent publications include viola transcriptions of works by Schubert and Mozart and a new scale method for viola, Scale Up! - all published by Partitura-Verlag. He also writes regularly for journals such as The Strad.

Alisa Yuko Bernhard studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, graduating with Bachelor and Master (Research) degrees in piano performance, and a PhD in musicology. Alisa's research is informed by her love of making and analysing music and by her interest in the first-person perspective, particularly that of professional practitioners. Her Master's dissertation focused on the relationship between musical "works" by J.S. Bach and Chopin, and individual performers/performances, through analysis of tempo fluctuation in recordings.

The relationship between music and dance of the Western performing tradition was the starting-point for her PhD project. The dissertation is a phenomenological exploration of musicians' and dancers' experience of musical listening, described as an embodied, temporal, kinaesthetic process in which our imagination plays a greater role than usually acknowledged. In it, the work of Vladimir Jankélévitch and Jean-Paul Sartre provide ways of thinking that help balance between the necessity of perception (i.e. we need to see/hear/feel bodies, sound, kinaesthesia) in order for music to "be there", and the idea that music is something "beyond", or in-between, sounds.

Alisa has been a staff member at the Sydney Conservatorium since 2016, mainly tutoring Harmony and Analysis but also teaching music history and musicological research, and became Associate Lecturer (Musicology) in 2024.

As a solo pianist and chamber musician, Alisa has performed locally as well as in Italy, France, Poland and Japan, and was a prizewinner in a number of national and international competitions.

Daniel Blinkhorn is a multi-international award winning composer, sound and digital media artist whose music gravitates around a synchronicity of frequency, texture, gesture, space, location and motion, all of which form (often metaphorical) frameworks within a given piece. Although often working in the electroacoustic, videophonic and ecoacoustic domains, Blinkhorn's output includes chamber, symphonic and wind orchestra works, sound installations, music for film, dance, radiophonic composition and various hybrid/ intermedia environments.

The piece 'red sound' from the frostbYte suite has been described as 'a true masterpiece, that captures and presents poetically the essence of human fascination with a timeless natural landscape' (International Computer Music Association Jury, 2013).

Blinkhorn's works are increasingly performed, exhibited and presented internationally, and his compositions have received over 40 international and national composition awards at prestigious compeitions.

He is the 2010 ABC Radio National Media Arts Fellow, and a 2011 Churchill Fellow, has worked in a wide variety of creative, academic, research and performative contexts, and has been a visiting scholar and artist at the University of Virginia, Music Department, the Conservatory of Music, University of Kansas City Missouri, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver and faculty member for 'Ecosono Alaska', a joint initiative between Ecosono Institute and Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Whilst entirely autodidactic in electroacoustic music and digital media, he has formally studied at a number of Australian universities including, COFA - UNSW and the University of Wollongong where his doctoral degree in composition was recommended for special commendation. Recent academic activities include completion of the 'Leading Teams' program administered by the University of Sydney Business School. Leading Teams - Digital Badge

More information about Blinkhorn, as well as samples of his work can be found at www.danielblinkhorn.com

Born in the Netherlands, Boersma Kees trained at the Victorian College of the Arts and later undertook postgraduate studies in his birth country at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. He performed for two years with the Royal Concertgebouworkest Orchestra, including appearances at the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms London and tours to Montreaux, Lucerne, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. Upon returning to Australia, he performed as principal bass with the State Orchestra of Victoria and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Boersma joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as principal bassist in 1990 and has featured as a soloist. Solo works with the SSO have included the Dittersdorf Divertimento for Viola and Double Bass, Bottesini’s Double Concerto for two Double Basses and Orchestra, Dragonetti’s Pezza di Concerto, Mozart’s concert aria Per Questa Bella Mano (with Teddy Tahu Rhodes), and the world premiere of Colin Bright’s bass concerto Young Tree Green, commissioned by the SSO. He is also a regular guest principal bass with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

As a chamber musician, he makes regular appearances with the Sydney Soloists and the Australian Ensemble. He has toured with Musica Viva, appeared at the inaugural Melbourne Spoleto Festival and in 2007 was a featured performer in the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. Boersma was also a founding member of the Brisbane-based contemporary music group ELISION, premiering the works of Franco Donatoni, Richard Barrett, Lisa Lim and Brian Ferneyhough. In his ten years with the ensemble, he recorded CDs and toured Italy and Germany, including an appearance at the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin.

As a music educator, Boersma has had a long association with the Australian Youth Orchestra and their summer National Music Camps as a tutor. He has also been a presenter at many double bass conferences.

Ole Böhn has pursued an extensive career as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. Since his debut in 1969, he has performed regularly with orchestras in Europe, the US and South America. In 1983 he toured the People's Republic of China.

He has collaborated with conductors such as Moshe Atzmon, Herbert Blomstedt, James Conlon, Lukas Foss, Michael Giehlen, Marek Janowski, Franz Welser-Möst, and Oliver Knussen, and is a frequent performer on radio and television world-wide.

In 1990 he gave the world premiere of Elliott Carter's violin concerto with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and has since performed this concerto, which was written for and dedicated to him, with the leading orchestras in Europe and the United States.

Ole Böhn's repertoire ranges from the baroque to the present day and he is regarded as one of the leading interpreters of American contemporary music in Scandinavia.

He has taught at the Royal Danish Conservatory and at the Conservatory of Music in Oslo; given classes at the Eastman School of Music, Hart School of Music, the Norwegian State Academy of Music, Gedai Institue, Tokyo, and the University of Northern Illinois; and for several years conducted summer classes at the Officina da Musica de Curitiba, Brazil.

Ole Böhn has studied under Louise Behrend at the Juilliard School of Music, with Ernst Glaser in Oslo, Henry Holst at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music, and with Max Rostal at the Statliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne.

He is the concertmaster of the Norwegian National Opera and has previously held a similar position with the Copenhagen Symphony Orchestra, and worked for shorter periods as concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Teatro del Fenice in Venice, Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, the Residentie Orchestra in Den Haag, Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, The Beethoven Orchestra, Bonn and the Hamburg State Opera. Ole Böhn uses a violin made in 1766 by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini. It was acquired for his use by Nordea Bank of Norway.

He joined the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as Associate Professor in 2009

Tamara Bulicic Auspont is an ethnomusicologist and PhD candidate at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2026). She holds an MA in Advanced Migration Studies from the University of Copenhagen and a BA in Musicology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her doctoral research explores Chinese lion dance in Chile, focusing on how sonic and embodied transmission shape transnational circulation and belonging in communities that fall outside conventional diaspora and Sinophone frameworks. She is currently a Postgraduate Teaching Fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. 

BMus(Sydney), MPerf(Sydney), DMA(Sydney)

Born in South Korea, Dr Eun-Jung Byun is an accomplished musician who has already established herself in the Australian music scene as a leading member of the new generation of professional collaborative pianists. She has exceptional skills as a vocal accompanist and chamber musician, and has had impressive success as a teacher, coach and entrepreneur.

Eun-Jung holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Performance, both majoring in piano accompaniment, from the University of Sydney under the tutelage of Elizabeth Powell, Daniel Herscovitch and David Miller AM. During her postgraduate studies, she was selected to take part in the student exchange program at the Royal Academy of Music, London and was awarded both the International Exchange Scholarship and the College of Humanities and Social Science (CHASS) Scholarship from the University of Sydney. She recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts on the development of Korean art song based on poetry from the Japanese Occupation Period (1910-1945) under the supervision of Associate Professor Jeanell Carrigan AM.

As a Korean-Australian musician, Eun-Jung has been actively involved in cultural exchanges of the two countries. She was invited to perform by the Australian Embassy in Seoul to represent Korean-Australian musician in South Korea at the launch event of ‘Australia-Korea Year of Friendship 2011’. Following this success, she performed in the annual Summer Chamber Music Festival at the prestigious Seoul Arts Centre and was appointed as a liaison officer for education outreach program for Sydney Symphony Orchestra Korea Tour 2011. She has also worked as a staff accompanist at Yewool Summer School Program and appeared in major concert venues in Korea with professors from Korean universities including Baritone Park Soo Kil, Emeritus Professor of Hanyang University and Soprano Lee Kyu Do, Emeritus Professor of Ewha Womans University.

A member of the Accompanists' Guild of NSW and the collaborative pianist for the Pacific Opera Studio, Eun-Jung has appeared in the Melbourne International Festival of Lieder and Art Song, Festival of Art Song hosted by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and the 2023 Dr Charles Perkins Oration with Professor Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, Sarah Prestwidge and Dr Daniel Yeadon. Since 2005, Eun-Jung was a staff pianist for the Vocal and Opera Studies division and is currently an Associate Lecturer in Collaborative Piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Dr Andrew Callaghan is a composer, sound designer, researcher and educator who Lectures in Composition for Creative Industries and film music history at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His expertise includes the scoring practices of Hollywood, documentary aesthetics, and the creation of original music for screen and new media. Andrew's research seeks to answer "where have we been, and where are we going"? His research includes historical studies of film and theatre music, and a practice that seeks out new possibilities for musicians working in the creative industries. 

His current screen-musicology research focuses on the structures, effects and contribution of accompanying music to realism in narrative and documentary media. He is particularly interested in how music and scoring practices contribute to truth-claims; in an era of epistemological crises, he considers this work important. His thesis, Hushed Tones: Inaudible Music in Hollywood Docudramas, won the Conservatorium Director's Award for Exceptional Doctoral Research. It established that serious, industry-celebrated films based on true stories provide unusually difficult problems for well-established composers. His analyses of the practices and compositions of Hollywood docudramas include those of Alexandre Desplat, John Williams, Marco Beltrami, Henry Jackman and Howard Shore. This research offers insights into broader contemporary scoring practices as well as its impact on audiences' worldviews. His most recent research has examined common trends in the beginnings and endings of cues in visual media, offering insights into subliminal music practices. 

As a composer, Andrew has scored and produced music for film, TV, documentaries, and drama that has appeared on SBS and ABC TV, and in TV series that were syndicated worldwide. He has scored a film that appeared at Cannes and worked competitively in the advertising industry, producing music that successfully competed with sound houses across the globe. His work for podcasts, albums, theatre, live events and installations have appeared within many major Australian forums, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Museum, the Sydney Opera house and the Arts Centre Victoria. He has won industry awards within Australia and internationally.

His recent composition and sound work has focused on interactivity and installations, exploring ways technologies may help professional musicians connect with audiences in entirely different ways. This age-old musical purpose-community and connection-could have new life through technology. He has collaborated with communities to build soundscapes, and his installations seek new forms of musicking, allowing non-musicians to co-create and play within complex musical environments. He is currently working on a score for a new digital theatre project funded by Creative Australia.

B.Mus. (Hons), Ph.D. (Sydney)

Rachel Campbell is a Senior Lecturer in Musicology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. She gained her PhD from the University of Sydney for a thesis exploring Peter Sculthorpe’s Irkanda period music in relation to Australian cultural history, historiography and nationalism. She has published articles in journals such as Musical Quarterly, Journal of Musicology, and Musicology Australia and entries in Grove Music Online. Her research is focused on Australian music in the context of Australian cultural history, especially themes of primitivism, gender, landscape, and nation.

She also worked as a journalist of recent classical music, interviewing numerous local and international composers and writing for Ensemble Offspring, ELISION, Symphony Australia, the Sydney Festival, and RealTime. She has appeared on national (ABC) radio and presented at conferences including the Biennial Conference in Music Since 1900, the Musicological Society of Australia, and the Australian Historical Association.

Benjamin Carey is a Sydney-based composer, improviser and educator, and Senior Lecturer in Composition and Music Technology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.Ben makes electronic music using the modular synthesiser, develops interactive music software and creates audio-visual works. Ben’s work is concerned with musical interactivity, generativity and the delicate dance between human and machine agencies in composition and performance. Ben has released ten albums, including METASTABILITY (2023), Hypertelic (2021) and ANTIMATTER (2019), and has collaborated with a variety of artists including Sonya Holowell, JACK Quartet, Sydney Chamber Opera, ELISION ensemble and others. He publishes traditional research outputs on electronic music, modular synthesis and the philosophy of technology in a variety of publications. His creative work has been performed and exhibited internationally at the Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music (UK), Sydney Festival (Australia), IRCAM Live (France), VIVID Sydney (Australia), and elsewhere. In2022/23 Ben was awarded with a Univeristy of Sydney SOAR Prize to support his research and creative work.

B.A.(Mus) with distinction (Qld Con), Kuenstlerische Straatsdiplom (Hochschule fuer Musik, Munich), M.Mus. (UQ) DCA (University of Wollongong)

Jeanell Carrigan studied at the Sydney and Queensland Conservatories and then in Europe with Nancy Salas, Leah Horwitz, Pamela Page, Alfons Kontarsky and Karl Engel. As a professional musician she has been involved in many educational and performance based activities.

As a teacher she has experience at all levels - primary, secondary and tertiary, in the class and lecture room situation and on a one-to-one basis. She has held positions of employment at the Hochschulen für Musik in Stuttgart and Munich, the Universities of Queensland and Melbourne and the Queensland and Sydney Conservatories of Music. She is constantly in demand as an examiner and adjudicator and is presently an Associate Professor in the Collaborative Piano Unit at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Jeanell has performed as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and throughout Australia, and has recorded for the Bavarian Radio Corporation, the ABC and for regional stations in Australia on many occasions. As a member of the Novalis Quartet, Trio Novalis and Richter/Carrigan Duo she performs regularly for Musica Viva and other concert organisations.

She holds a Doctor of Creative Arts in the area of Australian post-1970 solo piano repertoire and April 2026 released her thirty-seventh compact disc recording of Australian solo piano and chamber music. Her publications include several books: Post-1970 Australian Piano Music (1997); Australian Piano Music of the last Twenty -Five Years (2006); Composing Against the Tide (2016); A Musical Missionary. The Life and Music of Dulcie Holland (2020), (co-authored with Dr. Rita Crews OAM); Australian Piano Music 1850-1950. A Guide to the Composers and Repertoire (2021); The Music of Meta Overman. Queen of Colour and Fantasy (2021); Breaking the Drought. Roy Agnew: Composer, Pianist, Teacher (co-authored with Dr. Rita Crews OAM), (2022); Amayzing May. The Life and Work of May Howlett (2024); A National Treasure. The Life and Achievements of Larry Sitsky (2024); Women of the Keys, (2026) and over one hundred volumes of piano and chamber music written by Australian composers published by Wirripang, Australia.

In a review of the CD Reverie Alex Raineri wrote “Jeanell Carrigan has a remarkable and impactful career, particularly as an exponent of historical Australian works.” “A compelling disc that features excellent pianism and artistry from Jeanell Carrigan.”  (Music Trust, June 2022).

“The interaction between Carrigan, Goetz Richter (violin) and Minah Choe (cello) is fresh and dynamic, resulting in beautiful performances recorded with sumptuous richness and depth in the Verbrugghen Hall at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Thanks to the exhaustive research undertaken by Jeanell Carrigan, author of the liner notes and pianist for this recording (Limelight Review of the CD Music for the Salon Trio, by Lisa MacKinney, 8 July 2022.)

“As usual Jeanell Carrigan AM with her innate skill to interpret the composer's wishes, gives an outstanding performance of these works which will greatly encourage students to interpret and perform them at concerts and music festivals.” (Album review of Incantations, Music by John Peterson. Rita Crews, The Studio 2023.)

“Jeanell again proves her skill as a researcher and writer of the highest calibre.” (Book review of Amayzing May, The Life and Work of May Howlett.) Patrick O’Donnell, The Studio, 2024)

“Jeanell Carrigan, pianist, academic, adjudicator and strong advocate for getting Australian music performed and recording and presents the five individual brackets or sets with an expert, colourful attention to nuance, story, as well as programmatic reference. Jeanell Carrigan shifts virtuosically between the original Bach voice and Wilkin’s ‘so what’, eclectic elaborations here. The pianist gives a thorough and stunning reading of the extension of Bach.” (Album Review of Open Horizons, Paul Nolan, Sydney Arts Guide, October 2025.)

Other music Qualifications: F.T.C.L., L.T.C.L., A.T.C.L., L.Mus.A., A.Mus.A

B.Mus(Hons), B.Ed - UNSW | PhD - USyd | FHEA - Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK

Laura Case is a lecturer in musicology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Her research looks at the social and cultural history of music in Australia with a particular focus on the violin, cross-cultural interactions, and feminist perspectives. She is also passionate about using music to reframe Indigenous histories and reclaim Indigenous knowledge. Laura is of Wiradjuri heritage from Central West New South Wales and a classical violinist with over 20 years of performing and teaching experience. She has performed with pioneering Indigenous hip hop artist Rhyan Clapham (DOBBY), Aboriginal country singer Uncle Roger Knox and is a member of Deborah Cheetham Fraillon's Ensemble Dutala - Australia's only Aboriginal chamber ensemble. In 2024, Laura performed on stage with Ensemble Dutala at the annual Garma Festival in East Arnhem Land.

Laura's first book: "A Socio-Cultural History of the Violin in Australia: Identity, Resilience and Colonial Legacy" was released in 2025 with Routlede. This book presents a social history of the violin in Australia from 1788 to 1914, exploring its pivotol role in colonial society and influence on local music-making and culture. It provides scholars with new insights into how musical instruments like the violin were used to navigate and express social boundaries within a colonial framework.

Frank Celata graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1987 having studied with Phillip Miechel and Pamela Bloom. Following studies in Amsterdam with Piet Honingh of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and in Siena with Giuseppe Garbarino, he returned to Australia in 1991 where he was appointed Principal Clarinet with the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra.

Frank joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1993 as Associate Principal Clarinet and has appeared as soloist on numerous occasions including performances of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, Krommer's Double Clarinet Concerto with SSO Principal Clarinet, Lawrence Dobell, and a concerto written for him by Australian composer Gordon Kerry. He has also appeared as soloist with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and the Auckland Philharmonia.

Frank has appeared on a number of occasions as guest Principal Clarinet with the London Symphony Orchestra performing on International tours, CD and DVD recordings.

Frank is the Artistic Director of the Australian International Symphony Orchestra Institute (AISOI), an orchestral training institute, which attracts the cream of Australia's young musical talent.

Frank is an active chamber musician and is a founding member of one of Sydney's leading chamber ensembles, the Sydney Soloists. He is a dedicated pedagogue and has taught clarinet at the Sydney Conservatorium since 1994, where he is on the permanent staff as Lecturer in Clarinet.

Professor Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer and educator has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Cheetham Fraillon was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for “distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance”.

In 2009, Cheetham Fraillon established Short Black Opera as a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. The following year she produced the premiere of her first opera Pecan Summer. This landmark work was Australia’s first Indigenous opera and has been a vehicle for the development of a new generation of Indigenous opera singers.

In March 2015 she was inducted onto the Honour Roll of Women in Victoria and in April 2018 received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia for her pioneering work and achievements in the music.

Cheetham Fraillon’s Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, premiered to sold out audiences on-country at the Port Fairy Spring Festival in October 2018 and at Hamer Hall in Melbourne with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on June 15, 2019.

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s list of commissions for major Australian ensembles including works for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australia String Quartet, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Rubiks Collective, The Sydney Philharmonia, Plexus Collective, the Goldner Quartet and Flinders Quartet.

PhD, GradCertEdStd(HigherEd), BMus(Comp)(Hons), BIT(Hons), FHEA

Dr Alex Chilvers is a composer, teacher, and researcher specialising in music perception and intercultural engagement. His 2019 PhD thesis, “A Portfolio of Compositions in Response to a Study of the Aesthetic Function of Folklore in Modern Polish Music,” was completed under the supervision of Associate Professor Michael Smetanin and Dr Christopher Coady.

As a composer, Chilvers has collaborated with a range of artists in Australia and internationally. In 2015, he completed an artistic apprenticeship with the Polish composer Aleksander Lasoǹ at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, Katowice, composing the folk-inspired work o Śląsku for Poland’s renowned New Music Orchestra (Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej). His works have been premiered domestically by Soundstream Collective, Luminescence Chamber Singers, Sideband, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and soloists including Stephanie McCallum and David Lockeridge.

Chilvers co-founded the Bark Tin Band with colleague Dr Lulu Liu and has recently collaborated closely with musicians such as harpsichordist Anthony Abouhamad and percussionist Pirashanna Thevarajah. The band's debut record Tang Suite, a multi-movement work inspired by Dunhuang pipa manuscripts and Tang-era cultural mobility, was commissioned by the ABC and released in 2026.

Dr. Anthony Chmiel is a researcher and publishing author in music psychology and empirical musicology located in Sydney, Australia. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed outputs, with papers in top-tier journals such as Musicae Scientiae, Psychology of Music, PLoS One, Empirical Studies of the Arts, Journal of Voice, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, and Royal Society Open Science. He is also Consulting Editor for the Q1 journal Musicae Scientiae. 

Anthony's research has focused on understanding preferences for and emotional responses to music, as well as the mental health, wellbeing, and physical benefits of music across the lifespan. His primary affiliation is with Sydney Conservatorium of Music (University of Sydney), where he provides specialist research insight and strategy, along with the Associate Dean of Research. He also retains a position as an Adjunct Research Fellow in music psychology at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development (Western Sydney University). 

From 2012 until 2023 Anthony worked as a lecturer, convenor, and tutor for various music courses at UNSW, and has previously held postdoctoral research positions at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development (Western Sydney University), the Sound and Music Computing Lab (University of Padova, Italy), and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (University of Melbourne). From 2011 he has contributed work as an author and researcher to three separate ARC (Australian Research Council) grants. 

From 2026 to 2029 Anthony is a Chief Investigator on the MAITRI Grant "A partnership for Indian-Australian music, diaspora empowerment, and cultural exchange" (Centre for Australia-India Relations). 

Dr Alison Cole is a multi-award-winning composer, sound designer, and researcher based in Sydney, Australia. Since 2003, she has maintained an active international career across film, television, performance, installation, and commercial media. Her screen compositions have been presented at major international festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Sydney Film Festival. She is a Tropfest winner and recipient of multiple Best Composition Awards (ProMax ANZ) and a B&T People’s Choice Award. Her recent screen credits include a Disney+ (USA) limited television series (2026) and the feature film Electric Feel (2026).

Dr Cole was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts (Composition) from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2023. Her research investigates the integration of site-derived sound into compositional practice, examining how sonic ecology and sonic archaeology can engage audiences with historical perspective, material culture, and place-based memory. This research has generated a series of multimedia electroacoustic works, including Fabric of Memory (premiered May 2025), which explores the relationship between archival sound, spatial listening, and contemporary compositional form. Her research continues to develop through international collaborations and public presentations.

Her professional practice spans ballet, electronic music production and performance, feature film and television scoring, broadcast campaigns, multimedia installations (including Vivid Sydney and the Burning Man Main Arena), interactive scores, sonic branding, experiential environments, and themed attractions in Australia and Asia. She has composed and produced soundtracks for more than 40 films and television productions, and her work is performed and broadcast internationally.

Recent commissions include projects for The Australian Ballet (Kids These Days, 2022; So Glad You Made Me, 2024), Disney+ (2025–2026 television series), SBS, ABC TV series, Our Vietnam, and Tyro Machine Language (industrial and product sound-language design). Across these contexts, Dr. Cole’s practice is defined by the translation of narrative, spatial, and collaborative concepts into nuanced musical and sonic form. 
She has also performed nationally and internationally with ARIA Award–winning and nominated electronic artists. In 2025, she established Signature Sound, a Sydney-based creative composition studio and Australia’s first female-led screen composition team.

Dr Cole’s academic and creative work situates composition as both artistic and research practice, foregrounding interdisciplinary collaboration, technological fluency, and the cultural agency of sound.

Dr Amanda Cole is a Sydney based composer working in the areas of art music, experimental music, electronic music and sound installation. Her compositions feature microtonal structures, interference beats and fusions of electronic and live acoustic timbres. She composes innovative concert pieces and works in collaboration with other artists to create gallery installations and live performances. Her scores are performed internationally, and  often use unusual instrumentation and microtonal tuning. She composes and performs her own music on a Lumatone, which is a MIDI keyboard capable of playing microtonal scales with more than 12 notes per octave. Cole is intersted in connecting with nature and the universe through her creative work by exploring music physics and just intonation tuning systems derived from the harmonic series. 

Lewis Cornwell is an experienced theory teacher and composer with research interests in the area of 20th century Japanese composers. A graduate of the University of Sydney, he studied composition in the Department of Music with Peter Sculthorpe. He began tutoring in harmony in 1982, both in the Music Department and at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, gaining a full-time position at the Conservatorium in 1989, where he served as chair of musicology from 2002-2004 and 2006-2010, and associate dean (ICT/eLearning) from 2004-2006.

Lewis was a founding member of the composers' collective Music Performed and served a term as its administrator, helping to organise workshops of New Music for young composers. His works have been included in concerts given by the ISCM, the Mused Ensemble and the Seymour Group.

His interest in studying and composing new music for traditional Japanese instruments has led to performances of his works in Japan and Europe. In January 1997, Interweave, for shô and guitar, received its first performance at the 18th Festival and Conference of the Asian Composers' League in Manila. Lewis was a co-organiser of the Takemitsu Symposium and Tribute Concert, which was held at the University of Sydney in 1998.

As an oboist, he plays in local orchestras and chamber ensembles and assists with their administration.

Lewis believes training in theory and analysis gives students the ability to make their own discoveries about their music. He likes to work on the interface between craft and creativity, and has said that, “to know the conventions is to begin to understand the music that so marvellously transcends them”.