School of Music Graduates
Ashley Brown
Justine Cormack
John Coulter
Dr Maria Grenfell
Benjamin Le Heux
Dr Insuk Lee
Tony Lin
Tom McGrath
Martin Riseley
Dr Anthony Ritchie
Janet Sim
Dr Sumuditha Suraweera
Sarah Watkins
Andrew Withington
Ashley Brown, cellist
Ashley won the Young Musicians Competition, the National Concerto Competition and a Young Achievers Award plus prizes at the Adam International Cello Competition, Gisborne International Music Competition and the ROSL Music Competition in London. He holds a Master of Music from Canterbury University and Artist Diploma from Yale. He has been Cellist of the Turnovsky Trio, Principal Cellist of the Auckland Philharmonia and Lecturer in Cello at the universities of Waikato, Canterbury and Auckland. Ashley keeps a busy schedule of solo recitals, concertos and recording and enjoys close collaborative relationships with musicians across the spectrum of genres. He plays the 1762 William Forster “Liberte” cello.
Justine Cormack, violinist
Justine Cormack, the former Concertmaster of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, played for many years with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and New Zealand Chamber Orchestra. Recognised as a recitalist, chamber musician, adjudicator, concerto soloist and teacher, Justine’s myriad awards include a TVNZ Young Achievers Award, two QEII Arts Council Grants, a Fulbright Scholarship, and an NZSO Alex Lindsay Memorial Award. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a Masters from the San Francisco Conservatory and a Bachelors in performance violin from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
John Coulter
Lecturer in Composition, Griffith University, Queensland Conservatorium of Music. Australia. Currently Lecturer in Composition, School of Music University of Auckland
Teaching and research interests
* Electroacoustic music studies
* Electroacoustic composition
Dr Maria Grenfell (M. Mus UC)
Coordinator of Composition, Conservatorium of Music, University of Tasmania.
MA, Eastman; DMA, USCMaria Genfell’s music has been performed in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Mexico and South Africa, and is broadcast on ABC FM and Concert FM New Zealand. She holds degrees from the Univ. of Canterbury (NZ), Eastman School of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts, Univ. of Southern California.
Research Interests
Maria Grenfell's work takes much of its influence from poetic, literary and visual sources and from non-Western music and literature. She has received commissions and performances from professional ensembles including the Adelaide, Queensland, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, Christchurch Symphony, and the University of Southern California Symphony. Others that have performed her work include the Australia Ensemble, The Seymour Group, New Zealand Ensemble, Esperance Trio, and flutist Alexa Still. Her work is recorded on Trust CDs Landscapes: New Zealand Orchestral Music, and Kiwi-Pacific’s Burning Bright.
Benjamin Le Heux (M.A. Ethnomusicology UC)
see UC Chronicle article.
Conducting in Russia and Netherlands
Dr Insuk Lee (Ph D Ethnomusicology UC)
Post Doctoral Fellow School of Asian Studies, University of Auckland 2008-2010
Honorary Research Fellow, University of Alberta 2010-2011
Tony Lin – (B.Mus Hons- 1 class- UC)
Composer and pianist Chen (Tony) Lin was born in Longyan in the Fujian Province of China in 1988 and immigrated to New Zealand at the age of 6. Without a musical background, he began learning music with keyboard lessons at a late age of 12, advancing to piano with Rosemary Miller Stott a year later. In 2002, age 14, Tony passed ABRSM Grade 8 with distinction and LTCL (piano) with high distinction in 2005.
Tony is currently in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Music (Hons) at the University of Canterbury, studying a double major in piano performance with Gao Ping (previously with Peter Nagy and Judith Clark) and composition with Gao Ping, Elaine Dobson and Chris Cree Brown.
Having preserved a strong interest in composition ever since his first exposure to music, Tony’s earlier successes were first prizes in the composition section of the Christchurch Music Competitions. He has had works performed by the Burnside High School Orchestra and the Christchurch Youth Orchestra, and others recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.
Last year, Tony gave a performance of one of his own works at the Semaine Internationale de Piano et de musique de chamber in Switzerland to great acclaim. A recipient of the Lilburn Trust Student Composition Award in 2006, 2007 and 2008, Tony’s orchestral piece Requiem for a Bird was awarded top prize at the 2007 NZSO/Todd Young Composer Awards. Recent highlights include performances of his piece Zaige Zaiwu by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra as part of their outreach concerts.
Tony was the winner of the 40th New Zealand National Concerto Competition in 2007, and 2nd prize winner including “Best Classical Sonata Performance Award” at the 2008 Kerikeri National Piano Competition, where he included one of his own piano works in the final round. He is a recipient of the Dame Malvina Major Foundation Arts Excellence Award, Christchurch IRMT “Young Musician of the Year”, Ruby Hay Pianoforte Scholarship and the Leslie Atkinson Memorial Prize in Music.
Tony is looking forward to future compositional collaborations with Anna McGregor, Buz Bryant-Greene, John Chen, and CSO musicians. Tony wishes to further his studies overseas and maintain both composition and piano with equal dedication.
In veils concealed… was commissioned by John Chen especially for his New Zealand recital tour in July 2009, with funding assistance from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.
Commissioned:
Commissioned by John Chen specially for his NZ recital tour in July 2009, with funding assistance from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand
Funders: Arts Foundation of New Zealand
Performance History
World Premiere for P: In veils concealed...; John Chen; 110709
11 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at The Centre at Kerikeri
13 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at the Chanel Arts Centre, Motueka
14 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at Nelson School of Music Auditorium, in Nelson
17 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at the Gallagher Concert Chamber, in Hamilton
18 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at the Baycourt Theatre in Tauranga
19 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at The Conference Room, Putaruru
21 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at the Capitaine Bouganville Theatre in Whangarei
26 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at the Wanganui Memorial Hall Concert Chamber in Wanganui
27 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at the Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre in Upper Hutt
28 Jul 2009 Performed by John Chen at the Lake Wanaka Centre in Wanaka
12 Oct 2009 Performed by Chen (Tony) Lin (piano) at the Great Hall, Arts Centre in Christchurch
Events
30 Apr 2010 Performed by Chen (Tony) Lin at the Concert Hall at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, in Singapore
Tom McGrath
B. Mus (Hons.) Canterbury, Musikreife Richard-Strauss-Konservatorium, Munich.
Teaching Fellow in Piano Accompaniment at University of Otago
Martin Riseley - violinist, currently Head of Strings at the New Zealand School of Music
After UC graduated from Juillard School of Music, USA,1996
1994 Concertmaster of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
He taught as Artist-in-Residence at the Department of Music at the University of Alberta for several years, where with fellow faculty members Stephane Lemelin and Tanya Prochazka he surveyed the complete literature for piano and strings by Brahms and the complete trios of Beethoven. He was also a resident performer at the 2000 Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, where he appeared in concert with Andres Diaz, Andrew Dawes and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
He played with the National Arts Center Orchestra as both Guest Concertmaster and then Interim Associate Concertmaster for the 2002-2003 season, and also appeared in chamber music performances there with Pinchas Zukerman and Jon Kimura Parker. While in Ottawa he also appeared with Jamie Parker and Lawrence Vine at the Almonte Town Hall concert series for CBC radio. He was also Guest Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in August 2003.
He has also been Guest Concertmaster of the McGill Chamber Orchestra and the National Academy Orchestra of Canada. In 2007 he performed the Brahms B major Trio with William Eddins and Yo Yo Ma at the Annual Fundraising Gala of the Edmonton Symphony. He performed Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ Trio at the Kennedy Center in Washington as part of an Alberta Arts contingent in 2006, which was broadcast worldwide as part of their chamber music series on the Internet.
.He has performed the North American premieres of the violin concerto The Bulls of Bashan by Gavin Bryars, and the Violin Concerto (2002) by Allan Gilliland. He appears regularly as soloist with the ESO, in a variety of major concerti.
Dr Anthony Ritchie
MusB Hons (Canterbury) Ph.D, (Canterbury), LTCL (Piano)
Senior Lecturer in Composition. University of Otago
Janet Sim - cellist, currently with Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. After UC was cellist in Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra UK.
Dr Sumuditha Suraweera (Ph D Ethnomusicology UC)
Visiting Lecturer University of Colombo, Director of ‘Musicmatters’ Academy of Music , Colombo. Sri Lanka.
Sarah Watkins, pianist
Sarah Watkins has enjoyed an impressive career as chamber musician, collaborative partner and recording artist, performing throughout Japan, England and the United States with some of America’s leading instrumentalists. She holds both a Doctor of Musical Arts and Masters in collaborative piano from the Juilliard School in New York City, and a Bachelors from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Academic highlights include coordinating the collaborative piano programme at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, and working for several years on the music faculty of Purchase College, New York. As a United States resident for fourteen years, Sarah was a staff pianist at Juilliard, Yale University and the Aspen Music Festival.
Andrew Withington ( B. Mus 1 class UC) – Musical Director of Secondary Students’ Choir, Christchurch