| 2006 Finalists |
 2005 finalists - 2007 finalists  |
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JENNEN
NGIAU-KENG (Winner)
A graduate of the Australian National Academy of Music, Jennen Ngiau-Keng has won over 100 awards and prizes in music competitions. He also remains the only violinist in Australia to have received a Master of Music Performance degree after just one year of University studies.
Jennen Ngiau-Keng won the Geelong Advertiser Music Competition in 2009 ($10,000), the Kendall National Violin Competition in 2006 ($10,000), and the Gisborne International Music Competition in 2004 ($9,000).
He has performed over 30 concertos as soloist with many orchestras in Australia and around the world.
With the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Jennen has toured the U.S and Australia extensively, and has also acted as Guest Concertmaster of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.
Jennen Ngiau-Keng is a demonstrating technical violinist on the 'Australian Music Examination Board (AMEB) Technical Syllabus and Key Techniques CD series.
Jennen Ngiau-Keng performs with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Australian Philharmonic Orchestra, Raga Dolls Salon Orchestra and the Los Romanticos Mariachi Band.
Jennen Ngiau-Keng performs on a Graham Caldersmith violin and a Matthew Coltman bow, both of which were awarded to him.
Jennen commented “ I'm still playing my Kendall violin, and it's amazing”.
August 2011 |
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BING
XIANG
Bing was born 1987 in China, and relocated to Melbourne at the age of 4. He commenced violin lessons at the age of 8 with Sook Yoon, attending Camberwell Boys Grammar under a full music scholarship for 3 years. He then attended the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School from year 9 onwards, continuing his violin lessons with Miwako Abe.
Bing Xiang has been awarded numerous prizes including the Paul McDermott Scholarship for Violinists, the Austral Salon scholarship and the Preston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. In 2004 he was one of the three national finalists in the National Youth Concerto Competition held in Brisbane, QLD, where he performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Queensland Youth Orchestra under John Curro.
Bing is very involved in travel and studies as he pursues his musical career. He is currently in his 3rd year studying for a B.Mus (Hon) at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).
He won the 2011 RNCM Concerto Competition.
August 2011
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SONJA SCHEBECK
Sonja was born in Sydney, Australia in 1985 and is of Russian/Polish/Austrian heritage. She became entranced by the violin at age 3 after attending a baby prom by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and began studying the Suzuki method with Barbara Hayward. In 2009, she completed her Bachelor of Music (Performance) with first-class Honours from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, studying with Christopher Kimber and was the recipient of a University Postgraduate Award. She is currently undertaking the Masters program at the Konservatorium Wien (with the assistance of the Sydney University George & Margaret Henderson Postgraduate Scholarship), studying with Professor Florian Zwiauer. (1st Konzertmeister, Wiener Symphoniker).
Sonja has been fortunate to work in a variety of genres with artists including composer Chloé Charody, classical/theatre collective Ilythian, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Sinfonia, Sydney Scoring Orchestra (most memorably on Baz Luhrman’s ‘Australia’), Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Palace Gate Orchestra (concertmaster), Sydney Camerata, film director Jane Campion and composer Mark Bradshaw (soundtrack for ‘Bright Star’), pop/rock band Saving Grace, The Eastern Bloc folk string quartet, experimental band Wicked Miranda, Australian hip-hop group Mind Over Matter, balkan ensemble The Yellow Quinces and musical circus-stunt group Strings on Fire.
In 2010, Sonja was privileged to have played with Nigel Kennedy during his Australian concert tour and since April 2010 has been a member of Nigel Kennedy’s Orchestra of Life, performing concerts in the UK, Wales, Germany, Poland, France, Switzerland and Austria. She has performed as co-soloist with Mr Kennedy in Double Violin Concertos by Bach and Vivaldi and at festivals and concerts with the Nigel Kennedy Quintet.
Personal performance highlights include the 2008 Adelaide Fringe Festival, the 2008 Beijing Musicathlon pre-Olympics cultural festival (representing the Sydney Conservatorium), acting as assistant concertmaster for the Sydney Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra’s 2009 Europe tour, performances with Nigel Kennedy and the Orchestra of Life at Royal Albert Hall, Henley Festival and Latitude Festival (UK), Berlin Philharmonie (Germany) and with the Nigel Kennedy Quintet at Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Germany) and Przystanek Woodstock (Poland) 2010 and most recently at Porgy & Bess Jazz Club, Vienna in 2011.
Sonja has been a prize-winner at the Gisborne International Music Competition, Balmain Sinfonia Concerto Competition, Kendall National Violin Competition, Marcus Edwards Violin Prize, and Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra Concerto Competition, a finalist in the Musica Viva Chamber Music Awards and Nelson Meers Outstanding Instrumentalist Awards and a String finalist in the 2010 Symphony Australia ABC Young Performer of the Year awards. She has participated in masterclass lessons with Perry Hart, Jiří Zigmund, Simon Fischer, Pekka Kuusisto, Arabella Steinbacher and David Takeno.
Coming from a diverse musical background incuding folk and jazz, Sonja has also performed with various groups on guitar, double bass, piano and percussion. She has worked as editor and writer for MusiqueArt Magazine, Sydney’s only street press for the fine arts, is the co-founder of ‘Reachout’ (a touring education program designed to bring the classical music of today to the youth of Australia, particularly those living in regional and remote areas) and is a board member at Charody Productions. She also has a special interest in new music, twentieth-century Russian music (particularly that of Sergei Prokofiev) and in the circus arts of fire-eating and fire-breathing.
In 2011 Sonja will appear as violinist in the circus-opera “The Carnival” (premiered London, February 2011) and as guest violinist with the Dutch National Ballet as solo violinist the opera-ballet “Magdalene” composed by Chloé Charody, choreographed by Remi Wortmeyer, with libretto by Malcolm Rock (premiered Amsterdam, March 2011), as well as further tours with Nigel Kennedy's Orchestra of Life and the Nigel Kennedy Band.
August 2011
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LILLIAN SO
Lillian So is currently completing her undergraduate studies at the Sydney Conservatorium as a student of Professor Alice Waten. Her passion for music performance developed from an early age as she commenced lessons in both violin and piano at the age of 6.
Her most recent success has been progressing to Stage III String Finals of the ABC Young Performer's Award, through which she will be performing Stravinsky's Violin Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in June. Before then, Lillian received distinctions for her AMusA and LMusA diplomas at the ages of 12 and 14, and went on to achieve success in many esteemed competitions.
She won the National Youth Concerto Competition, performing Khachaturian’s Concerto with the Queensland Youth Orchestra at the age of 15, and was a finalist in the Richard Goldner Award and the Kendall National Violin Competition in 2005 and 2006 respectively. She has also been a soloist with the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra (KPO) numerous times due to her successes in the NSW Secondary Schools Competition where she was the Overall Winner in 2007 and a winner of the Multiples Section in 2006 playing the Brahms Double Concerto. In 2008 she was invited back to perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the KPO.
Last year, Lillian gave a live broadcast recital for the 2010 2MBS-FM Young Performers Award and was a finalist in the NSW Doctors Orchestra Instrumentalist Scholarship. Lillian has also enjoyed touring England, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Germany as a member of chamber orchestras representing the Sydney Conservatorium during 2009 and 2010.
Beyond the stage, Lillian graduated from High School in 2008 with a UAI of 99.95, having yielded exceptional results in accelerated subjects such as First in the State for HSC Music in Year 10 and Tenth in the State in HSC Agriculture in Year 11. These results contributed to her receipt of a University of Sydney Outstanding Achievement Scholarship for her current Bachelor studies.
August 2011 |
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