BIOGRAPHIES

FLINDERS QUARTET

Flinders Quartet (FQ) is instantly recognisable as one of Australia’s most loved chamber music ensembles. A quartet for the twenty-first century, FQ approaches its third decade with acknowledged musical skill and maturity, presenting dynamic and stirring performances of a full spectrum of repertoire.

Committed to industry development, FQ regularly commissions and premieres works by Australian composers. Their 2020 season includes the premieres of new works by Katy Abbott, Deborah Cheetham AO; and emerging composer Ella Macens (participant in FQ’s 2017 Composer Development Program). In their ongoing mission to further the Australian tradition of chamber music, FQ has previously commissioned and premiered works by Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, Elena Kats-Chernin, Stuart Greenbaum, Paul Dean, Paul Grabowsky, Ian Munro, Iain Grandage, Andrew Ford, Calvin Bowman, Tom Henry and Matt Laing. In 2016, FQ launched its annual Composer Development Program, working to further the career of emerging Australian composers.

Vanguards of the Melbourne chamber music scene, FQ continues its own subscription season and undertakes regular regional and interstate touring, performing for festivals and concert presenters throughout Australia. International engagements have taken FQ to the UK, Singapore, Canada, and most recently, Sweden and Finland, where they performed the complete string quartets by Sibelius.

FQ have a steadfast commitment to the development of Australian chamber music, musicians and audiences. As teachers and mentors, they have worked with the Australian Youth Orchestra and its developmental programs for young chamber groups. They also work with the Victorian Amateur Chamber Music Society and are regularly invited to tutor at secondary and tertiary institutions throughout Australia and in 2018, FQ were appointed Artistic Patrons of John Noble’s Quartet Program; an initiative that reaches student and amateur musicians in regional Victorian through mentoring and shared performances.

2020 GUEST ARTIST

LLOYD VAN’T HOFF (clarinet) Born in Darwin, Australia, Lloyd Van’t Hoff is fast building a career as one of Australia's most dynamic and versatile young clarinettists, creators and educators. 2019 will see Lloyd perform as a solo, chamber and orchestral musician at festivals and venues around Australia and the world, as well as continue a passionate advocacy for music education and new music through teaching and commissioning work.

In 2015 Lloyd was crowned the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year. Lloyd has also followed his passion for chamber and orchestral music around Australia and the world, with recent appearances at festivals in virtually every state and territory in the nation, as well as in Asia, Europe and North America.  Lloyd is also a founding member of the award-winning Arcadia Winds who were named as Musica Viva’s inaugural FutureMakers. Recent orchestral highlights include concerto performances with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria, and appearances as guest Principal Clarinet with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria  and Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.

Lloyd studied under of Paul Dean, Floyd Williams and David Thomas at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and the Australian National Academy of Music. More recently, Lloyd has learned with esteemed pedagogue Yehuda Gilad in Banff, Canada.

Web: lloydvanthoff.com

2020 COMMISSIONED COMPOSERS

DEBORAH CHEETHAM AO
DUniv, BMus Ed, AmusA

Deborah Cheetham, 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 was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).

In 2009, Deborah Cheetham established Short Black Opera, a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. The following year she produced the premiere of Australia’s first Indigenous opera, Pecan Summer, which has become 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. In 2019 Deborah Cheetham received the Merlyn Myer Prize for composition and was presented with the Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award for service to music in Australia.

Deborah Cheetham’s latest work Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, sung entirely in the Gunditjmara language,  premiered to a sold out audiences on-country at the Port Fairy Spring Festival and in Melbourne with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on June 15, 2019.

Deborah Cheetham has been named the 2020 Composer-in-residence for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

ELLA MACENS

Sydney based Ella Macens is a fast-emerging composer with a passion for choral, orchestral and chamber music writing. Capturing qualities from both popular and classical music styles as well as that of her Latvian herritage, Ella's music is becoming well-known in Australia and beyond.

Ensembles and organisations that have commissioned, premiered or performed her work include the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Youth Orchestra, the Flinders Quartet, The Goldner String Quartet, the Strelitzia String Quartet, The Song Company, Gondwana National Choirs, Sydney Children's Choir, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Chamber Choir, State Choir Latvija, Latvian choirs Pernigele and Anima, the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music Chamber Choir, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, West Australian Young Voices, Young Adelaide Voices, the Leichhardt Espresso Chorus, Claire Edwardes, Genevieve Lacey, Neal Peres Da Costa, Danny Yeadon, the Judgment of Paris Recorder Quartet, Cranbrook School, Trinity Grammar School, the Canberra International Music Festival, the National Carillon Association of Australia, the Sydney Latvian Society, Sydney Festival 2018, and the XV Latvian Canadian Song and Dance Festival.

Ella has completed a Bachelor of Music (Composition) with first class honours at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney, and is currently studying a Master of Music (Composition) under the guidance of Professor Matthew Hindson AM. As one of four composers selected to participate in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music's inaugural National Women Composers' Development Program (2016-17), Ella has been fostering connections with some of Australia's most esteemed ensembles and soloists through the creation of a series of solo, chamber, choral and orchestral works.

Her compositions have won awards, including inclusion in ENCORE (2009), the Frank Hutchens Scholarship for Composition in 2012 and the Fine Music FM Young Composer Award (2017) for her first orchestral piece titled FLIGHT.

In 2015 Ella held the position of composer in residence with Trinity Grammar School and Sydney Youth Orchestra. She is currently the 2018-19 composer in residence with Sydney Children's Choir as well as one of four composers selected to participate in the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Australian Composers' School (2018-19).

The composer's musical voice is heavily influenced by her Latvian heritage. Growing up in a rich and colourful Latvian community has led her to be continuously surrounded by instrumental folk music, baltic choral music and traditional dance. These elements have unsurprisingly woven their way in to Ella's compositional style. In 2017 she received a prestigious award from the World Federation of Free Latvians (PBLA) to honour her dedication to her cultural heritage, specifically through the incorporation of Latvian elements in her professional line of work. Ella further celebrates her cultural background by arranging traditional Latvian folk songs into contemporary music styles with her good friend Ivars Stubis, which they perform together at Latvian festivals and events in Australia.

Ella is also a proud music educator, teaching Music for Creative Industries (Composition), the Fundamentals of Music Theory, and Intermediate Level Aural Skills at the University of Sydney and Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She also teaches composition privately, inspiring her students to bring their musical ideas to life.

Web: ellamacens.com