KATHERINE LUKEY (Winner)
Katherine has just been selected as a string finalist in the 2009 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award. She will perform the Nielsen Violin Concerto with The Queensland Orchestra in June.  She is currently completing her Masters in Performance with Alice Waten at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as a recipient of the M E Wright Bequest.  She was winner of the 2004 Kendall National Violin Competition and also received the audience choice prize. 

Katherine has twice been awarded the Dr Bill Williams Memorial Prize at the Australian Concerto and Vocal Competition and was winner of the Musical Society of Victoria Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Award for Strings and finalist in the 3MBS FM Young Performer of The Year Award.

She is currently a core player with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra with whom she has appeared as soloist.  She has also performed as soloist with the Darwin Symphony, Melbourne University Orchestra and Melbourne Sinfonietta.  Katherine has been a member of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra with whom she has toured Europe, Asia, North/South America and Australia.  She also plays regularly with the Melbourne Symphony, Sydney Symphony and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestras.

Till 2009 Katherine was also a full time student at the Australian National Academy of Music and participated in masterclasses with Professor Boris Kuschnir, Dimitri Sitkovetsky, and Professor Felix Andrievsky.  She was recently awarded a scholarship from the Llewellyn Memorial Fund to attend the 2009 Weimar Master Classes, and Academie de Musique Tibor Varga in July.

Katherine graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Music (Honours) in 2003 and in 2006 completed postgraduate studies at the University for Music und Dramatic Arts in Graz, Austria with Professor Silvia Marcovici and Guest Professor Tibor Varga.  She received numerous awards from organisations including the Australia Council BUZZ Grant, the Ian Potter Foundation, and the University of Melbourne to facilitate her studies in Austria.
June 2009

ANYA MUSTON
Anya is presently undertaking further postgraduate study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Professor Yair Kless with the assistance of the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund scholarship.  She has been the recipient of the prestigious international postgraduate scholarship from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.  She travelled to England to audition with the assistance and support of a BBM scholarship.  She completed her B. Mus (Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium in June 2007 and was a two time recipient of the Frank Hammond scholarship while there.  She previously studied with Wanda Wilkomirska and Philippa Paige.  She was awarded her L Mus A at the age of 15. 

In June 2009 Anya was the winner of the RNCM Gold Medal, the College’s highest honour for performance.  Earlier in 2009 Anya won the Norman George Kreisler Violin Prize.  Anya won the Australian Concerto Competition in 2006 playing the Shostakovich Violin Concerto.  She is a multiple prizewinner at the Performing Arts Challenge in Sydney and a previous recipient of the Marcus Edwards Violin Prize.  In December 2003, sponsored by SBS, Anya was a finalist and awarded a diploma in her first international violin competition, playing the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 1, in Moscow. 

She has recently performed the Lou Harrison concerto and Prokofiev Concerto No 2 to audiences in Manchester and was a recitalist at the Montepulciano Music Festival in Italy in July 2009.  Other public engagements include performances of violin concertos by Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Mendelsohn, Beethoven, Brahms and Prokofiev, solo works by Sarasate and the Dvorak Violin Concerto to audiences in Prague, Budapest and Bratislava. 

Anya is presently trialling with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra while she continues her studies.
August 2009

RICHARD POLLETT
Richard was born in Adelaide in 1986 and began his violin studies at the age of five. In 2007 he undertook a Masters diploma with Italian violinist Massimo Quarta in Lugano, Switzerland at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, completing it in January this year with highest honours. Richard currently studies at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne with Paul Wright. Before travelling abroad, Richard completed a Bachelor of Music Honours degree, studying with Michele Walsh at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, attaining first class honours and the University Medal, and then a Master of Philosophy degree at the University of Queensland.

Richard participated in the Stage III finals of the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards in 2006 and 2007, performing with the Tasmanian and Queensland Symphony Orchestras. He has won prizes in the Kendall National Violin Competition and the North Queensland Concerto and Vocal Competition, and in 2007 he won the Llewellyn Memorial Fund’s major award.

Richard’s recent performances include Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins with the Orchestra of Lugano, Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo capriccioso with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.1 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Oleg Caetani in 2007 as rehearsal soloist.

Richard has participated in several music festivals in Europe including the Kronberg Violin Masterclasses and Lenk Summer Academy in 2009, and the Charleston Manor Festival with cellist Robert Cohen in 2008.

In 2004 Richard toured Europe with the Australian Youth Orchestra and in 2006 participated in the AYO Young Australian Concert Artists program. He has participated in masterclasses with Ivry Gitlis, Howard Davis, Rudolf Koelman, Oleh Krysa, Charles Castleman and the Henschel Quartet.

Richard is the 2010 winner of the string section  of the ABC's Young Achievers' Award
June 2010