KATHERINE LUKEY (Winner)
In April Katherine was awarded the position of assistant concertmaster with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She also recently performed as a member of the Australian World Orchestra comprising local and expatriate orchestral players at the Sydney Opera House. She continues as a core member of the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra with whom she will tour Victoria and NSW as a soloist in October.
Katherine was winner of the 2004 Kendall National Violin Competition and also received the audience choice prize.  In 2009 she was a string finalist in the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award performing the Nielsen Violin Concerto with the Queensland Orchestra. She has twice been awarded the Dr Bill Williams Memorial Prize at the Australian Concerto and Vocal Competition and was winner of the Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Award for Strings and finalist in the 3MBS FM Young Performer of the Year Award.

From 2002-2006 she studied with Prof. Tibor Varga and Silvia Marcovici at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts, Graz, Austria. She has performed as soloist and chamber musician for organisations in Austria, including the Yehudi Menuhin LIVE MUSIC NOW foundation. In 2008 Katherine was invited by Musica Viva to perform at Sydney’s Recital Hall at Angel Place, and in Melbourne she performed regular solo and chamber music recitals as a member of the Advanced Performance Program at the Australian National Academy of Music. Katherine has attended masterclasses with Prof. Igor Ozim, Prof. Boris Kuschnir, Dimitri Sitkovestky, Gerard Poulet and Felix Andrievsky. Katherine has appeared as soloist with the Darwin Symphony, Melbourne Sinfonia, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Sydney Conservatorium Orchestra as winner of the University’s Concerto Competition. She recently completed her Masters in Performance with Alice Waten at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where she was a recipient of the M E Wright Bequest.

Katherine continues as a casual member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She has been a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra with whom she has toured Europe, Asia, North/South America and Australia.

In 2012 she looks forward to performing the Mendelssohn Concerto with Sydney’s Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.
August 2011

ANYA MUSTON
Anya has recently completed her Masters degree (with First Class Honours) at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in the UK, studying with Professor Yair Kless, having completed her Post Graduate Diploma (with distinction) in 2009. She received her international postgraduate scholarship from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, having completed her B. Mus (Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium in June 2007, where she studied with Wanda Wilkomirska and Philippa Paige.

Anya has been a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra since 2002 and was concertmaster of the SBS Youth Orchestra from 2004 to 2007.

In 2006 Anya won the Australian Concerto Competition playing the 1st Shostakovich concerto, and was a finalist in the Kendall National Violin Competition in 2004. In December 2003, sponsored by SBS, she was a finalist and won a diploma in her first international violin competition, in Moscow.

In 2009 Anya was awarded a Gold Medal from the RNCM and was also the winner of the Norman George Violin Scholarship. In 2010 she was a winner of the RNCM concerto competition and as a result played Bartok's 2nd violin concerto with the college symphony orchestra in December.

Anya’s recent public engagements have included performances of violin concertos by Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Prokofiev and Lou Harrison.

Anya has accepted a permanent position as a first violin with the Halle Orchestra. She was awarded 2nd prize and a Certificate of Distinction in the 2011 Matthew Krel Prize.
August 2011

RICHARD POLLETT
Born in Adelaide Richard Pollett began violin studies with Michele Walsh at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music Griffith University in Brisbane, gaining a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours and receiving the University Medal. He was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award to do a Master of Philosophy at the University of Queensland and a Llewellyn Memorial Fund major award for postgraduate studies with Massimo Quarta at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, where he graduated with highest honours. Richard then returned to study at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne with Paul Wright.

Richard has been successful in numerous competitions. A finalist in the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer Awards in 2006 and 2007, he went on to win the Strings Final in 2010. Richard was a prize-winner in the Kendall National Violin Competition and the North Queensland Concerto and Vocal Competition in 2004. He was a finalist in the National Youth Concerto competition in 2002, performing with the Queensland Youth Orchestra, and in the same year was a winner in The Queensland Orchestra Young Instrumentalist Competition.

As a soloist Richard has appeared with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as well as the Orchestra of Lugano in Switzerland. He has participated in several music festivals in Europe including Kronberg and Lenk Academies, and the Charleston Manor Festival in the UK with cellist Robert Cohen.

Richard has toured Europe with the Australian Youth Orchestra and has participated in the AYO Young Australian Concert Artists program. He is currently studying in Israel at the Buchman Metha School of Music, Tel-Aviv University, with the concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Ilya Konovalov.
August 2011

†  It is with very great sadness that we learnt that Richard Pollett died on 27/9/11 in a tragic bicycle accident.  Our deepest sympathy to his parents, Patricia and Philip, family, friends and colleagues.  He will always be remembered by the Kendall National Violin Competition “family”.
October 2011